Reality isn't the pretty thing that we think it is
by planet p
Summary: AU; Emily becomes a contestant on a reality TV show. Begins in early '03. Rated for language, non-consent, and other mature themes. Emily/Lyle, sorta.
1. Chapter 1

**Reality isn't the pretty thing that we think it is** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

* * *

**Another lame story; just remember: it's M.**

* * *

DAY ONE

The Contest

Washington

What Emily had been told, in fact, was surprisingly little in comparison to the questions that had managed to accumulate over the hour and a half she'd spent in Makeup. Most of the time she'd spent sitting around, waiting for the product in her hair to do what the label said it would, or for her fingernails to dry, or for the stylist to return with an appropriate ensemble for her to wear on her first day. It was just for the first day, they'd said, for the promotional shots, though the entire time she'd been thinking, _I'm fine with what I'm wearing, why can't you be, also?_

She'd met Brenda, ChrystElle and Jo, the women from the other teams, when they'd popped into the Dressing Room for a while, but now she was alone. She'd been told she would be in the Yellow Team, which had suited her fine; yellow was her favourite colour, though she wore it surprisingly sparingly. Now, she was waiting for the stylist to find her something awful to wear for the promo shoots whilst the other women were probably snacking on carrot or celery or crackers or something, and she was sitting in the same chair she'd been sitting in for the last half hour, trying to ignore the fact that _she_ was actually hungry.

Well, there _was_ that, and the fact that she would probably only throw up if she ate anything, anyway. She was far too nervous to think about eating and keeping anything down – unless that something was coffee, she thought with some gloominess. She couldn't wait to get out of Makeup and find herself a coffee!

Waiting for the stylist's return, she preoccupied her thoughts with the fact that she really was glad that she'd never felt any particular urge pushing her to go into reporting; she'd been okay with remaining a journalist, and staying away from the cameras. Suddenly, she had realised, she might well have had a little stage fright.

Despite the fact that it had been entirely her own idea, she'd felt totally uncomfortable with the whole idea of signing up for this reality television show from start to finish. In fact, it was probably a pity that she was so well-disciplined and that, once she set her mind to it, she rarely backed away from a task.

The task at hand was, after all, a ridiculously stupid one, and, what was more, fantastically dangerous. The least comforting thought, however, was that she would suffer through all of that if it meant she could fix some of the damage that her brothers had had to suffer through.

She wasn't the only one who probably wasn't feeling the most secure about joining the show. Apparently, if she'd got her facts straight, someone from the Center would be joining as a contestant, also. When she'd first heard the news, she'd hoped liked crazy it wouldn't be Cox, and decided to get herself into action. What she really needed was an ally in the Center, and maybe this show could help her get that. Maybe even a creep like Cox had his weaknesses, she thought. But, by goodness, she hoped it wasn't him.

* * *

She was, of course, ready to meet her 'partner' with a smile and a handshake, ever the courteous one. That was until she set eyes on him.

In a flash, all of the animation sunk back from wherever it had come in horror and her face was left uninterestingly blank. The viewers at home would be wondering, at this point, she thought, whether she was a men or women kind of girl, or maybe they'd just think she had a thing against cute, white boys.

She didn't have a thing against cute, white boys, she reminded herself, though she had no idea why; what she had was a thing against maniacs. If she'd been worried that her partner might be Cox, then she hadn't been thinking entirely clearly. After all, Cox had hardly made so many mistakes, or on such a massively unimpressive scale, as to be sent away so that he wouldn't do so again quite so soon.

A bright spark he might have been, in the grand scheme of things, but when it same to thinking clearly, there wasn't a chance in Hell for that.

A quick glance at the presenter – Carmen – told her that she wasn't doing what she was supposed to be doing; she was, in fact, the only one smiling, and it looked horribly, horribly wrong. It was all Emily could do, in fact, not to frown at her and scream, 'Kill him! He's the enemy! He's a lunatic! Kill him!'

So she forced a smile onto her face, and held out her hand, and said, "I'm Emily."

He didn't bother to smile back, but took her hand and replied, "Lyle."

If she had been five years old, she might have pulled a face and said, "I so knew that!" But she was 33, so she refrained.

* * *

Having taken a seat on a sofa in the Common Room to listen to how the contest would play out, and just who all of the contestants were, some ten minutes ago, Emily smiled and remarked quietly, "It sounds like it's going to be quite the joy."

"Without a doubt," Lyle replied, without turning to give any indication that she'd said anything, or that he'd heard her do so. "I see it runs in the family. Taking stupid, deliberate risks for absolutely no gain whatsoever."

"I beg your pardon, but if you hadn't turned up, it wouldn't have turned into such a 'stupid, deliberate risk for absolutely no gain whatsoever,'" she snapped, keeping up a pleasant face for the cameras.

She knew exactly what he was thinking, he was wishing he'd been paired with ChrystElle, instead. She seemed like a nice, reserved girl, she wasn't a journalist, she was 22, and she was of Asian extraction. She wouldn't have argued with him, she'd have found him perfectly charming (and completely ignored the perfectly psychotic part).

She suppressed a laugh. It was unbelievable how stupid and gullible he seemed to think all women were. One day, she would have to tell him just what she thought of him.

She frowned, scrambling to piece together the presenter's last words. Thirty minutes – holding hands with that lunatic! Everyday!

With a smile, Lyle picked up her hand and held onto it. "Smile, cupcake," he told her quietly. "It's for the viewers at home."

"I think I might be ill," she replied. "Cupcake!"

"Hold onto that thought," he said, "we might need the sympathy votes, sometime in the near future."

She laughed softly. "Or I could _accidentally_ stab you to death with a kitchen knife in Cookery class!"

"I have twelve words for you, sugar. If you weren't so disgustingly ginger, I might have considered marrying you!"

"I am going to be ill!" Her eyes widened in horror. They had to share the same accommodations! She actually thought she felt her stomach turn over, as much as that was literally impossible. Any moment now, her stomach contents were going to be making a beeline for the nearest floor, or sofa.

* * *

With the rules still ringing firmly in her mind, Emily set off to get her things – which had been moved to her new accommodations already; _By Mickey Mouse and his magical troupe_, she thought – settled in into all of the right places; clothes in wardrobes and drawers, cosmetics, soap and shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste and mouthwash in the bathroom, and so on.

Remembering that the cameras were keenly observing her, she didn't make a run for it in effort to reach their room first and lock Lyle out; she kept her pace at a nice, even speed, catching herself so as not to lag behind, either, and wondered what would happen if she accidentally sprained her ankle so early on in the competition.

The prize for the winners wasn't that they got landed with a whole heap of money, but they got to choose which school or education institute the money was donated to. In other words, it was a bit sucky, in Emily's quiet, unvoiced opinion.

With a smile, she turned a glance in Lyle's direction and asked politely, "Who were you planning to nominate to get the money, if you won?"

"Not a school. Ah, a literacy foundation. It's involved in education, so it might just be allowable. We'll see. And you?"

She smiled a bit more and said sweetly, "You read my mind."

"If _we_ win, Emily," he replied. "There's no 'u' in 'team.'"

Suppressing a scowl of anger, she spun swiftly in the direction of the camera and yelled, in her best cheerleader voice, "Go Yellow Team!"

* * *

Once they'd settled their things in, they were to report to the Diary Room to give their report of their first impressions, apparently. Emily made a face at the yellow envelope that had been waiting for them on their arrival, and passed it to Lyle, who, unhelpfully, had as completely overlooked it as she had.

"What does it say?" he asked, more to her annoyance.

"Read it yourself, cupcake," she said, handing it to him and walking back to the large bay windows which she'd particularly liked the first time she'd seen them.

"They're double glazed, to try to keep the heat in," Lyle replied. "What does it say?"

Rolling her eyes, she spun back around to face him and snapped, begrudgingly, "We have to-" She shook her head; for all of the niceties, she hadn't seen one clock. "Do you have a watch?"

"Why? Are we on a deadline?"

_Diary Room_, she mouthed.

"Would you open your mouth and actually say something," he snapped.

"I thought you didn't like it when I blab-blab-blabbed!"

"I don't. Now will you just tell me what the note says."

"Diary Room; 11:45 A.M."

He looked at his watch briefly. "Two minutes," he replied, reaching over to grab her hand. "Let's go!"

"Go where, cupcake?" she shot.

"Bring the note!"

"What's the point? It doesn't have a map, Dumbo!"

He stopped, frowning at her. "Why not?"

"You're the mind reader."

"They must have mentioned it…"

"When I was blab-blab-blabbing earlier," Emily added, suddenly. "Oh, my bad!" She gave a fake little giggle.

"You really are your brother's sister!" Lyle snapped.

The overly cutesy smile wiped off Emily face, replaced by a sudden hardness.

"Look, let's just go… somewhere, at least!" Lyle replied, tugging her in the direction of the door again.

She followed him without a single word. She didn't think she was capable of thinking of even a single word beside 'Die, you psycho!' at that moment.

* * *

EMILY (33)

DIARY ROOM – DAY ONE – 11:53 A.M.

_Now that you've finally met, what are your thoughts regarding your partner? Do you think you'll work well together? Or do you see there as being potential problems? If so, what sort of problems are you seeing?_ a disembodied voice asked from a speaker mounted to the wall.

"Well, it's definitely encouraging that we're both hoping to- I mean, we were talking earlier and it's pretty, I don't know, cosmic, or something, but we're both hoping donate our money to similar places if _we_ win." She laughed. "I guess it's, like, a point that we can each look at and say, 'There's a start,' you know? Which is encouraging given that he's about ten years older than me. I just hope he doesn't think the only thing I'm into is, like, _Harry Potter_, or something. Cos, I mean, I'd hate to have to kick his butt!"

She laughed, and nodded. "I think we could work well together, as long as he's seeing me as a person and not just some kid, you know? I think we have a good chance, yeah. We could totally win! Go Yellow Team!"

_How do you find the accommodations?_ the voice asked.

"The windows – are _so_ nice!" Emily enthused. "Though, you know…" She frowned. "Oh, that's why it's a double bed! I was so like, 'Where's the other room, guys!' Now I'm, like, T-O-T-Ally embarrassed!" She shook her head, smiling. "Gramps can totally sleep on the couch; a girl's gotta get her beauty sleep! I love the windows! They rock! Like Yellow Team. We rock!"

_Thank you for your time; we hope your stay with us is a positive one_, the voice concluded. _You're free to rejoin the other contestants._

Emily sighed heavily. "Oh, thank goodness! Diary rooms – T-O-T-Ally creepy!"

* * *

LYLE (43)

DIARY ROOM – DAY ONE – 11:58 A.M.

_Now that you've finally met, what are your thoughts regarding your partner? Do you think you'll work well together? Or do you see there as being potential problems? If so, what sort of problems are you seeing?_

"She's a pixie. I'm hoping she has magical powers. In all seriousness, though, she is tiny! Hopefully, she'll do okay in the more physical challenges, though I can envisage that I'll have to be getting things down from the top of the cupboards a lot. No, ah, I think we'll work well together. She seems like a fun person to be around. I will have to draw the line at _Futurama_, though, if she's the sort of person who enjoys watching… that sort of thing. In my reserved opinion, it's, ah… mindless. Just a tad, you could go so far as to say.

"And ginger! It's exciting. The ginger ones are always exciting, never a dull moment! I'd have to say Yellow Team is definitely in there with a chance. Just… don't tell her I said that; she'd laugh herself silly, I can see it already!"

_How do you find the accommodations?_

"It's workable. Let me just say now, before you all start going, 'Yeah, totally random!', if Ginger talks in her sleep, she is seeing someone! I don't do bedtime stories."

_Thank you for your time; we hope your stay with us is a positive one. You're free to rejoin the other contestants._

* * *

"Do I look pale?" Emily rattled off practically in his ear, the moment he stepped out of the Diary Room. "Look at my face. Is it pale? That was so scary! Like, 'Help, Sydney, anybody!' That is so creepy!" She waved a hand near her face frantically, her eyes widening. "My hand's shaking! We so better be having lunch soon or I'm going to _die_!"

Lyle clicked his fingers near her ear, "Snap out of it! You're not thirteen!"

Emily dropped the frantic schoolgirl act. "I hope you didn't say anything creepy! No-one is going to vote for us if we're Team Creepy!"

"And, remind me again, why do we care?"

She balled her hand up into a fist and punched him in the arm, but not hard. "There's no 'y' in 'team,' Lyle!"

He laughed, looking away from her. "I hate you."

"I'm a girl, I hate you more!"

"You're a woman, not a girl," he pointed out. "And how does that give you any more license to hating someone than it does for a man?"

"Don't argue with me, I can claw your eyes out with my fingers and plead insanity and _just_ you watch them fall for it!"

"Go right ahead," he replied.

"I would," Emily said in a dejected schoolgirl voice, "but then I'd get my clothes bloody, and they're not even mine."

"I'm disappointed."

"Plus," she added delicately, "this is a reality TV show, not a snuff flick. You, of all people, would know that best."

* * *

Lunch was held in the cafeteria; they had to line up and wait for their turn to order. Sighing heavily, Emily wondered why Jo (38) had had to be paired with Alejandro, who was 25, and not her. Waiting in line with Lyle, Emily shot him a dirty look when he took her hand.

"I'm not sitting around for half an hour, doing nothing and holding your hand," he snapped in annoyance, and she poked her tongue out at him.

"They had better have dessert. I'm getting apple pie, if they have."

"You're not- Forget it."

"I'm not what?" Emily asked, doing her best to keep a scowl off her face.

"Nothing. I told you, 'Forget it.'"

"Not nothing – tell me!"

"Bite me."

"I will," Emily threatened.

"Oh, sure. I'm sure the viewers at home will be thrilled by-" He pulled his hand away from her sharply. "Excuse me, that actually _hurt_."

She shrugged, receiving a questionable look from ChrystElle. "You wouldn't be good to eat; you don't taste any good."

Lyle rubbed his hand, looking all offended. "You savage."

"Bite me!"

"No, thank you."

"Chicken! Let's get rid of Jo first; I want Alejandro!"

"Why don't you go and bite her then?"

Emily stared at him. "Are you kidding? She'd totally kill me! She's way bigger than me! All she'd have to do is to prod me and _Bam!_ – I'd keel over dead."

"You're not that easy to kill," Lyle told her, irritated, still rubbing his hand. "I should know. What are you having?"

Emily didn't say anything. She was thinking about what he'd said, and how them hanging out together was really kind of freaking, in consideration, and how, one day, she was going to get revenge on him for Kyle. It was because of him, after all, that she'd never had the chance to get to know her brother. It was only fair that he got something back in return… for all of his hard work!

* * *

As they were eating lunch, Carmen returned to inform them that they had free time for the rest of the day, on the proviso that they sat down and spent some time talking to one another – there may very well be quizzes in the future – and they clocked their half hour of holding hands. If they failed to do so, they would be fined a certain amount of points.

"Wow!" Emily enthused. "Did I say 'fun' or did I say 'fun'?"

The only other condition for the day was that they make dinner together, and have a look around their accommodations for anything that might be missing and add it to a list that they would be able to take with them on Friday when they went out shopping.

"We need a toaster," she added.

"Did you look if we had one?" Lyle asked.

"No, but who'd hide the toaster if there was one?"

"I wonder."

"Are you serious?"

He frowned. "Where do you think a toaster should go?"

"On the kitchen counter!"

"Perhaps they didn't want to clutter the counter before anyone had had a chance to decide where to put the toaster themselves," he suggested.

"Where would you put the toaster?"

"If you have a grill, you don't need a toaster. If not, I'd probably put it where you would; on the bench top."

"You look! I'm not getting on the floor."

"I'm not the one who's going to chuck a wobbly if I don't get toast when I want it!"

"I like toast."

"Good for you. You look then."

She pulled a face, then, seeing that she was being stared at by ChrystElle, she dropped the look. "ChrystElle wants you," she said, just to annoy him.

"Are you sure it's not you she wants?" he asked.

"I'm so sneaking out at night and bringing back some mud to _throw on you!_" she growled.

"Don't be making promises that you can't keep now, young woman," Lyle told her, with a smile.

"_Thir_ty-three," she spat. She wasn't a _young_ woman; she was a _woman_!

"Three sounds about right," he replied.

"Two sounds about right for you!" she hissed.

"You're adorable, ginger! Has anyone ever told you that? You're downright adorable!"

"Go to Hell!"

"Will you come with me?"

* * *

After lunch, Emily spent an hour having a look around their accommodations, writing things down on a list of things that they didn't have and _totally_ needed. They needed Windex, or something like it; they needed sponges for the kitchen, they needed paper towel (for the kitchen, also); they needed a universal remote; they needed ice-cream for the freezer (for midnight snacks), and salted cashews and peanuts, potato chips, apples, lemons, oranges…

"Kale," Lyle added, looking over her shoulder at the list she'd compiled.

"What?" she blurted, distracted by his annoying, annoying reading glasses.

"If you're making a shopping list, we should have a look around for kale," he replied.

"What is that?" she asked, as though maybe it was something major-gross.

"It's a bit like cabbage."

"Yuck!"

"It's nice."

"It's not going on the list!" Emily told him.

"You have apples," he pointed out.

"Because I like apples!" she replied snippily. "Would you lose those glasses somewhere, they're weirding me out! You look like you're supposed to be somebody's shrink! I'm not sleeping in the same room with a freaking shrink wannabe!"

"They're reading glasses."

"Who cares? Not me!"

"I need them to read," he said.

"Was I the one who bonked you on the head so your eyes got all funny? No!"

"Nobody 'bonked' me on the head," he said, starting to get annoyed.

"That's really bloody sorry, you know that!" she told him. "I'd pity you, if I didn't hate your guts so much!"

"No you wouldn't," he replied. "It's just something that happens."

"If you say so, doctor. I know I can't hope to come anywhere near close to your understanding of junk; I'm just a person! What's more – I'm a woman!"

"Is that supposed to be some sort of insult against my sister?" he asked.

She choked, then glared at him. "Get your head checked out, idiot! It's supposed to be some sort of insult against _you_!"

"Right. Well… duly noted. I'll have to think up something nice and insulting to come back with."

"You looking at me is insulting enough," she said. "Without you even opening your crappy trap and speaking!"

He smiled.

She stomped her foot and turned around, shoving him in the shoulder. "Quit making me insult you! If they have spy cameras, they're going to be pissing themselves laughing at us, and not in the good way, either! We're supposed to be getting _along_! I want to win – not lose! Go find something constructive to do that doesn't involve encouraging me to bad behaviour!"

"Encouraging you, really?"

"Don't you do that voice with me," she warned, "or I'll make pancakes for dinner! And I'll burn them!"

"That would be unpleasant. And I wouldn't fancy the benzene poisoning, thank you."

Emily pointed a finger at him. "Nick off! Go see if you can find a mop anywhere!"

He glanced at her hair sceptically, then turned and walked off to look for a mop.

With the sneaky feeling he'd just insulted her hairdo, Emily returned to the list she'd been compiling.

* * *

"Where'd you get this kale rubbish from anyway?" she asked, as they were walking around looking for a gym, or a pool, randomly holding hands. Emily hoped there'd be a pool. An ice-skating rink would have been nice, but she figured that was stretching it a bit; they were hardly likely to have one of those!

"My grandparents liked kale," he replied.

"Your grandparents were strange, like you," she said, and laughed. "Like you've even ever _met_ your grandparents!"

"My adoptive mother's parents I have met, yes."

"Lucky you!"

"They were nice people."

"I guess it's a good thing they're dead, then. They'd hate themselves for how you turned out, if they weren't."

Lyle frowned. "I don't see why they should. Isn't it my choice me how I turned out, not theirs?"

"If that's how you want to see it; that's not how I see it, that's all I'm saying," she replied.

"I think it is. Take your brother, for example-"

"Shut up about my brother!" she snapped suddenly, turning a nasty glare on him.

He shrugged. "Okay, whatever."

"You have no fucking right to talk about my brother!" she hissed. "Any of my _brothers_!"

"If you say so."

"I do fucking say so!"

"Like I said: 'Whatever.'"

She threw him a dirty look. "Fuck you! And if I hear about anyone harassing ChrystElle, you're the first one I'm going to be pointing my finger at!"

"Fair enough."

"Keep that in fucking mind!" she hissed. "And let go of my fucking hand, you lunatic!"

He nodded to something ahead of them, and she turned to look, still glaring.

They'd finally found the swimming pool, it looked like.

Jo waved to them; neither of them waved back. Chatting to Alejandro, Jo didn't even notice that they'd fobbed her off.

* * *

Dinner was almost silent. Emily sat at the counter, chopping lettuce into smaller and smaller pieces. When Lyle came over to take the cleaver off her, finally, she fixed him with a filthy look, and left to go watch television in the lounge room, turning the volume up especially loud so as to annoy him.

He didn't come in to tell her to turn it down, much to her annoyance, until it was time for dinner, and he switched it off at the set.

Emily glared at him, and brought her food back into the lounge to eat it, throwing him an even dirtier look when he told her that he'd prefer if she kept the volume on the television down to a reasonable level and suggested that she help with the washing up.

She walked to the fridge and poured herself a glass of chilled water with a glass from one of the kitchen cupboards, then walked back to the lounge room. She wasn't going to help with any such thing; she was going to drink her water and relax!

* * *

At 8:30, after having to be shaken awake, she decided that she would turn in early and tromped off to the bedroom to change into her flannelette pyjama set and lie down. Hopefully she'd be asleep by the time he decided that he was tired, too.

* * *

At 10 P.M., she was woken again by a hand on her arm, and snapped open her eyes with a dark glare.

"When do you want to get up?" Lyle asked, sitting on the edge of the mattress.

"Eight," she replied, and turned back around, snapping her eyes shut again. She hoped she dreamed about him dying!

* * *

DAY TWO

As she listened to her breathing, trying to find a thread of relaxation that would lead her off to sleep again after the thunder that had woken her, Emily felt the mattress move. A hand on her shoulder pushed her onto her stomach on the mattress, and a heavy weight came on top of her to pin her down.

Emily's heart pounded harder than ever; she could feel panic swiftly creeping up on her, as though clawing its way through her veins, straight into her heart. Knowing best than to lose her head and panic, she forced herself to remain still and alert, to bide her time until her opening came up. Panicking would get her nowhere.

Her heart pounded loudly in her ears, threatening to block out all other sound.

A couple of moments later, as she was trying desperately to keep her breathing under control, not to give away her condition, she felt her shirt being tugged up, and someone's cold fingers gliding over the vertebrae of her lower back.

She'd have dearly given anything not to shiver, but that wasn't how it worked.

_Wakey, wakey, sunshine_, Lyle traced the words on her back. _Are you with me, darlin?_

Shivering, she gave a tiny nod, knowing full well that whatever he had planned it wasn't going to be something she would enjoy. He might just have asked her if she was awake, but he'd obviously decided that this way was much more fun.

_Perfect. Now, I'd like you to pay close attention now, darlin, cause there's all of two things that can happen here tonight and trust me when I tell you – one of them you ain't gonna like very much. Are you gettin all this?_

She nodded very slightly. She was keeping up, but it wasn't easy.

_Good girl. Who'd ever think you were foolish enough to try to kill yourself and end it all? That's not you at all, is it?_

A lump rose in her throat, partly in outrage, and partly in anger. As much as she'd have loved to have rebelled, she knew that her moment was not right, not yet, and painfully, she forced herself to nod again.

_There's my girl. I have a little proposition for you that's hopefully gonna make things a whole lot nicer between us. What do you say I run it by you?_

Again, she gave a very small nod, and felt him lean down to whisper in her ear, pressing her further into the mattress. _Breathe, just breathe_, she told herself silently.

He slipped a hand into her hair, making her shiver again, and whispered into her ear, "I don't favour the attire that you chose to dress yourself in for sleep. You would agree, wouldn't you, it's hardly the most flattering?" He tightened his hand around a fistful of her hair.

"It… isn't," she breathed, and the lump in her throat got in the way, making her stammer.

"What say we take care of that now, shall we?"

"I'm really t-"

"I can see to that real easy," he hissed. "Easier than you'd ever think, darlin'."

_Play along, you stupid girl!_ "No… I'm awake now; I wasn't really that tired… after all…" she rushed to reply.

She could hear the smile in his voice – "That's my good girl!" – and was relieved more than she would have been comfortable admitting when he finally returned to his side of the bed and allowed her to sit up. She painfully regulated her breathing at an even pace, forcing herself to refrain from taking large gulps of air, and said, "I don't have anything else to wear for bed."

It was her voice that betrayed her; it wobbled as though standing at the very tip-top of a high cliff, about to tumble down to its cold, hard death.

He shrugged easily and leaned closer, "Then don't wear anything." He reached for her pyjama top and began undoing the buttons.

She remained absolutely still, feeling her face flame darkly, betraying her again.

At last revealing her bra, he decided, "No, that doesn't do you justice. Take it off. Get rid of it somewhere; I don't ever want to see it again." and shakily, she nodded, and did as he'd instructed, hating that she was so afraid of dying that she'd stoop to any low he asked her to.

In the end, he decided that her underwear, which had matched her bra, were as distasteful as the earlier item, and she removed them, too.

Smacking her on the bottom heartily, he declared, "All set, darlin'. And what a fine, young specimen you are! Alright, here's the deal. You don't want the Center knocking down that door over there and carting you away to an uncertain fate, and, for that matter, neither do I. I think we can come to a little arrangement. You're turn: Hit me! What are your thoughts?"

She nodded silently, shaking, but not because of the cold.

"You think we can be friends, darlin'?"

"I do," she said quietly.

He smacked a hand on her bare thigh as though encouragingly and laughed. "I'm not askin' you to marry me here, darl! But that's good to know. Good to know."

"We can be friends," she forced the words out, doing her best to disguise her hatred and disgust, as well as her fear.

He sighed, patting her shoulder. "Look, darl, it's late. Why don't you get some rest, give it some more thought, and get back to me in the morning? How does that sound to you? Acceptable?"

With a massive effort, she held herself back from spitting in his face and scrunching her face up in anger, and replied with a simple nod.

"Good girl. You sleep tight now."

"Goodnight," she answered back, injecting a little cheerfulness into her voice at last.

* * *

The buzzing of his cell phone woke him at fourteen minutes past three in the morning, and he sat up, opening the drawer in the bedside cabinet, and took out his phone to answer the call. He listened to what the person on the other end had to say for a short while, before answering, "She looks good to go. No discernable scars of dubious origin, from what I was able to gather; good skin, eyes are fine. What- Sometimes these things show up in people's eyes. You don't-" He laughed quietly, mindful of the hour, and the sleeping woman beside him. "I see. Naturally. Well, I'm only going by what I've read. No. You can't trust everything that you read in books, you're absolutely right. I guess I'll get- Well, actually, I was h- She's asleep and- Of course. I understand." He pressed the button to end the call and let his eyes travel to Emily's small, muted form, curled up into a tight ball in sleep.

Well, that had to have been the most fun phone call of his entire life, he thought dryly.

* * *

She couldn't have moved enough to read the time off of the digital clock, if there had been a digital clock, sitting on the bedside cabinet, which, in any case, there's wasn't, though it was clear by the darkness of the room that she'd only been allowed a few hours sleep, at most.

"If I hear so much as a word out of you," Lyle hissed menacingly, with complete and utter seriousness, "I'll snap your little neck and be done with it!"

That was the point when she finally understood exactly why she'd woken up, and that there wasn't any way that she was getting out of this. Then, as if it had been against her from the very start, she found suddenly that all of her earlier tiredness had fled, replaced by a horribly mounting feeling of sickness, and a small prickling of tears in the back of her eyes. She had the sudden thought that if she didn't vomit soon, she would start crying, and she didn't know which could possibly be worse, until she realised that the lump in her throat was back – and she couldn't breathe.

* * *

When it finally reached bright fingers through the cold glass of the large bay window, curling around the edges of the window, the sunlight stung all the way through her eyelids, right to the back of her eyes, forcing her to blink rapidly, and tears to race from her eyes.

Morning had come, at last. She imagined a hand reaching for a door, a breathless "Made it!", as though morning were a person off to work, just glad to have made their bus.

She didn't smile, today.

She couldn't move.

She blinked harder, and some of the blurriness cleared, revealing a bright blue sky. It probably would have been a wonderful day: yesterday.

Blinking more, she found herself staring at someone's hand. Her eyes moved to the thin red cut, very neat, a little below the wrist. She wondered if it was more for show, or if he really was mad and had decided that the pain helped to keep the delusions away.

If she'd had a gun, she would have shot him dead on the spot. He'd never have to suffer another delusion again, she thought. She'd be doing him a kindness.

Unfortunately, she had no gun.

Pushing his hand away, she decided that it was time to make coffee.

* * *

She'd dug out a yellow dress to wear from the wardrobe and slipped it on, before walking to the kitchen to fix coffee, and returned to the bedroom, fifteen minutes later, with a mug of hot coffee in hand.

She hadn't bothered with a coffee, herself; she wasn't going to have anything to eat or drink for at least as long as she could, until someone started asking questions. She wasn't going to play the game his way; she was a part of the game now, too, she was as entitled to choose her own moves as he was his. She fully intended to do so.

She didn't stop in the doorway, or, for one second, think about going for help, when she walked into the bedroom and found that – _Dearie me_ – he wasn't feeling his best. It was some sort of fit, she supposed, and watched with keenly disguised interest, the mug of coffee still held in her hand.

Her first thought was that it was drug-related, and her heart, despite itself, skipped in something fast approaching delight at her second thought, that he might very well die. People died from taking the wrong drugs, or too much drugs, or taking them in the wrong combination with pharmaceuticals and alcohol all the time, she knew. It was always in the media.

Her heart sunk when she realised that as much as she'd have liked to think so, Lyle was not an idiot. It just wasn't the sort of thing he'd do wrong. He'd probably have had enough years of practise feeding other people drugs to know exactly how that sort of stuff worked.

With a sinking heart, she trudged to the bedside cabinet, and placed the mug of coffee down there, before walking back over to him and kneeling down beside him. "Are you okay?" she asked, though it was fairly obvious that he wasn't, and she wondered if he'd even heard her.

If she hadn't have decided otherwise, she thought, she'd have already have taken his coffee and sat down on the bed to sip it. It was only going to get cold, after all, waiting from him to drink it.

She settled on the floor beside him and waited for him to come out of his fit, wondering if it hurt or not. She hoped it did, even if it didn't. Maybe she'd look it up sometime: Convulsions. On the web, or something.

A minute or so later, she was startled from her thoughts on the subject by a hand on her leg, and carefully schooled her expression away from one of disgust and outright anger into one of concern and curiosity.

"Are you okay?" she asked, for the second time, and scooted forward to help him to sit up. She couldn't see the cut on his arm, just under his wrist, because he was wearing a shirt and a jacket, but she'd not forgotten it was there.

To her question, he made no effort to reply, and she stood up, helping him to his feet, and helped him over to the bed, sitting down beside him for a moment.

"You're okay now," she told him, as though that was that, and he would be okay, just as soon as she had decided it. He would be okay because she was okay, even though she didn't want to be. Even though she wanted to get out, get away; even though she wanted to kill him. She refrained from all of these impulses, and, to the outward world, looking in, she was okay.

And he would be, too.

As she stood to leave, he grabbed her arm, and she turned back slightly, placing a hand over his wrist as though to take his hand from her arm. A smile threatened to work its way onto her face when she dug her fingers into the part of his arm where she knew the cut was and felt his grip on her arm lessen in response. "I've made you a coffee," she said, and she couldn't have been any more pleasant about it. "It's sitting just there, on the nightstand, waiting for you." And with that, she gently pried his hand from her arm and left the room, her bare feet almost silent on the carpeted floor.


	2. Chapter 2

DAY TWO

She sat in the cafeteria, a polystyrene cup of coffee in front of her, trying to remember to blink and not to stare, in her yellow dress and brown suede ankle boots.

Beside her, Lyle frowned and said in a low voice, "Have something to eat."

She didn't reply. She'd have told him she wasn't hungry, she was feeling sick, she must have come down with something because of his _wonderful_ cooking last night, but she just couldn't be bothered doing anything but wishing he was dead. He was an asshole, and he should have been dead.

So much for hoping he'd be struck by lightning and die; the clouds were all gone now.

"Do you want me to get you some toast? What kind of jam do you like? Strawberry?"

"Fuck you," she gritted through her teeth.

He shuffled his chair closer to hers and put an arm around her shoulders, making her flinch.

It was 7 A.M. and it looked like they were the only ones up, apart from the cleaning and cooking staff.

"I'm sorry. I wasn't very nice to you and I apologise. You just pissed me off, that's all. You can't do that, okay. In future, you have to be nicer."

"In future," she breathed, "I'll have to stab you to buy a hairdryer and electrocute you to death."

"Sorry?" he asked.

"I said, 'I don't feel well,'" she lied, raising her voice a little. "I'm not hungry, I don't feel well."

"You should still try to have something to eat," he replied, "if you're not feeling well. Maybe just something small, a piece of toast, maybe?"

"I don't feel like toast, I don't want to eat anything!"

"Do you want to tell someone?" he suggested. "Maybe you have the cold or something?"

She grabbed his hand and put it on her forehead. "I don't have a cold! I don't feel well! If you don't stop hounding me, I'm going to throw up on you!"

"No you aren't!"

"Yes, I will!" she snapped, losing her patience.

"Alright, fine, I'm stopping," he agreed, finally.

She let go of his hand. She didn't want him even touching her!

"But you'll go to see someone if it's not gone… if you're not feeling better by lunch, yeah?" he added, as an afterthought.

"Maybe."

"Yeah?"

"I said, 'Maybe'!" she snapped.

"Yeah, well," he remarked, "I trust you to do the right thing. You're a clever girl, you're not stupid."

_I am stupid_, she thought, _I let you get within 50 yards of me. I'm a fucking imbecile!_

* * *

"You're not well," she managed finally, when the lump in her throat had lessened some. "I don't see you running off to tell the world about it."

"I have epilepsy," he said calmly. "There's not much I can do about it. I have medication, that's about all I can do."

"What about some sort of diet?" she suggested, though she couldn't care less, really.

"My diabetes wouldn't be too happy about that."

"I've read about diabetics managing their condition with diet, too," she said, and stifled a laugh. "Since when are you diabetic?" she added, making her scepticism clear in her voice.

"I have been since I was a kid, it's no big deal. Look, as long as you don't- I can't have rosemary. You know, the herb. Yeah. I can't have it. It'll trigger an epileptic attack, and I haven't told these guys I'm epileptic. It's frankly none of their business; it's my life. And I don't do diabetic crap. I don't trust anything that kills ants not to kill humans, too."

"What's that?" she asked.

"You know, that artificial sweetener stuff," he replied absently.

"It kills ants?"

"Yeah."

She shrugged. "You're not making me want to eat, telling me this shit, you know," she told him plainly.

"Well you shouldn't eat neurotoxin," he snapped, then looked away from her, taking his arm from around her shoulders, "unless you want to die. Do you want anything? I'm going to get myself some water. I don't drink coffee; my sister drinks enough for us both."

Emily shook her head; she was fine, she didn't want anything.

"I'll check if they have something with apple," he said, and walked off.

* * *

"Are you feeling unwell?" ChrystElle asked her, settling into a seat beside her, turning on a concerned little voice that made Emily want to throw up all over her.

"No, I'm fine," Emily said, trying to muster the energy to sound it. She wasn't sure if ChrystElle believed her or not, but she smiled cutely and held out her almost Barbie-sized hand.

"I'm ChrystElle," she said, as though Emily was an idiot and hadn't been listening at all the day before.

Emily only said, "Emily," and didn't even bother to shake her hand.

Eventually, ChrystElle put her hand down.

Emily refrained from spitting in her face, 'Fuck off, stupid bitch!', even though that was what she felt like doing. A lot.

ChrystElle looked up when Lyle returned, passing Emily a plate with two pieces of fruit toast on it, buttered but without jam or honey.

"Hi, I'm ChrystElle," ChrystElle repeated.

Emily tried not to vomit, or go pale.

"Lyle," Lyle replied, nodding to the plate he'd just brought over for Emily.

"No," she said plainly, then turned to look at ChrystElle. "Would you tell him I'm not hungry, already? He won't listen to me."

ChrystElle smiled, but didn't tell Lyle anything. Instead, she got to her feet and said, "Well, I guess I should really get myself something for breakfast." Then she glanced at Emily and stabbed her in the back sweetly. "You really should eat something, darling. I have to go. I'll see you guys later, though."

"I hope you trip over and break your nose, bitch!" Emily hissed after her, but only when she'd moved far enough away that there was no hope of her possibly catching wind of what she'd said.

"Are you going to eat your toast or what?" Lyle asked. "Don't just sit there and stare at it prettily all day! It's going to get cold and the butter won't be nice anymore."

"I hate butter," she intoned.

"A little bit's not going to kill you," he said. "Anyway, it's good for you."

"That's what you think," she replied, glaring at her toast rather than him. She was sick to fucking _death_ of his suddenly caring (suddenly apologetic) routine. She wanted to puke all over him, or maybe find a gun and shoot him!

Pity there was practically no chance of that, she thought.

* * *

Their first challenge of the day was so stupid Emily wanted to walk right up to Carmen and slap her across her silly, falsely tanned face. In any case, Emily thought it was stupid. She had half a mind to think that they – or whoever it was who'd organised all of this rubbish, anyway – were just being funny and thought that orienteering was actually letting them off easy for their first day of challenges – like it was 'easy-peasy, Japanesey'! Like they were schoolkids!

Whilst they were trudging around, looking for some dumb flag, Emily took her shoes off and lost them somewhere; not that she cared; they were just walking around in the grounds, and she wasn't scared of a bit of grass touching her!

She traipsed around after Lyle, feeling sick and stupidly (seeing that she could have easily had breakfast) hungry, and hoping that a branch or something fell on her so she could go to hospital and get the fuck out of this dumb reality show. If she'd been a bit more clear thinking, she would have realised that reality television had always given her the pips to no end, and she'd have scratched her stupid idea from her ideas card before she'd even had the chance to think about it twice.

Spotting one of the orange flags, she pelted past Lyle in the direction of the little flag, and shrieked when someone grabbed her from behind and lifted her off her feet.

"Where's your shoes?" Lyle asked.

She didn't bother to tell him it was _where're_, and glared at nothing seeing as she couldn't twist her head around enough to glare at him. "Put me down, you fuckwit!" she told him. "Can't you see the fucking flag?"

"Can't you see the fucking nettle?" he replied dryly, and put her back down on her feet.

She raced off to get the flag anyway, all the way through the nettle without flinching once.

* * *

She was given an antihistamine by an on-set medical officer, and finally gave it a rest that the nettle stings were itchy. They hadn't stopped being itchy just like that, she was just pissed off that the medical officer hadn't asked her how she was, apart from asking about the stings. As though she looked perfectly fine to her, in every other regard.

Emily wanted to throttle her, but just shut up and said nothing.

So, they hadn't won the crappy orienteering challenge; she had to spend most of their lunch break retracing her footsteps to try and find her shoes again, which she found a convenient excuse not to eat anything.

Lyle offered her a jelly baby, but she accidentally dropped it in a pond.

For some reason, as though maybe he'd grown a brain, he didn't offer her another one.

She pretended not to feel how empty her stomach was, or how hungry she was. She'd promised she wouldn't eat a thing all day, and she was intending on living up to that promise if it damn well killed her.

Lyle got her a bottle of water, but she used most of it to cool her face down. Finally, he said, "Would you stop behaving like a child?"

She merely came back with, "I'm not behaving like a child. Would you stop behaving like a jerk?" which shut him up.

* * *

Their second last challenge of the day was identifying plants in the estate's gardens using a dichotomous key. Emily grabbed the tiny magnifying glass and slipped it into her pocket and left Lyle to make any sense of the key. Just looking at the thing made her feel ill.

Holding her shoes in one hand, Emily wandered around after Lyle, looking around at the plants or at the other teams, whenever she caught sight of them, and wishing for the thousandth time she'd been paired with Alejandro. She'd even have taken John or Robert. At 34, John was practically her own age, and she'd heard from ChrystElle, who was Robert's partner, that he was a tax accountant. Even he was only 37, much closer to her own age than 43, she thought.

Once, she spotted dull-in-the-extreme-like-it-was-incurable 25-year-old Brenda and John smiling and chatting and wandered off to listen in on their conversation (hiding behind a bushy-looking plant, of course) until she'd had just about enough of Brenda's I-once-had-work-experience-in-a-nursery cutesy rubbish than she could handle, and returned to the marker she'd been standing by earlier, only to find that Lyle had gone and nicked off on her.

Annoyed, she tromped off to find him and snatch the clipboard off him to check how far they'd progressed already before shoving it back at him and glaring at the plant he was trying to figure out the name of.

She had no idea what it was, and apparently he didn't either, and the key – which had been photocopied a couple half dozen times, itself a photocopy of a photocopy, at some ridiculously small size, though it had likely come from a big, old book out of some library some place – was lending no-one any favours, especially Lyle.

He hadn't thought to bring his reading glasses with him, and now, it seemed, he actually needed them.

She grabbed the sheets of paper that the key had been copied onto and stapled together and folded them up. "Guess."

* * *

"May I have the paper back?" Lyle asked, finally, glancing over at her with an annoyed expression, and she returned his glance with a mild look.

"Not really," she said. "I don't have it. I dropped it in some plants somewhere, and I wasn't sticking my hand in amongst a bunch or plants to get that stung too, or to get bitten by some insect! Why don't you suck up to Brenda? She worked in a nursery, big fucking deal!"

"Well, thanks for nothing, Emily," Lyle replied, with a sigh, obviously in comment to her stupidity, she decided.

"Thanks for nothing _yourself_!" she snapped, and dropped her shoes on the ground and walked off.

He didn't bother to follow her, or call her back. He just acted like she didn't exist.

* * *

When it was time to rejoin the others, when the time allotted for the challenge had run out, Emily flounced back over to Lyle's side and glanced studiously at the clipboard as though she'd spent hours agonising over it already and smiled nicely at Brenda when she glanced their way.

When Carmen told them that they'd have to wait until after dinner to tally the results of their challenges, Emily almost threw her shoe at her.

Refraining, she slipped her shoes back on instead, and informed Lyle that she wasn't hungry and that she was going swimming. If he made anything for her, she wouldn't eat it; it would only be going in the bin.

* * *

It wasn't until she'd had her swim and they were all gathered, once again, in the Common Room to listen to the tally for each team for their first two challenges, that she realised that they hadn't held hands all day and would probably get points taken off for that if they didn't lie and hope Carmen didn't ask any of the others if they'd seen them holding hands.

The whole thing, she decided, was pretty stupid seeing as they might have hid in one of the bathrooms and held hands in there for half an hour and Carmen would never be any the wiser. It was just so stupid, Emily thought, and smiled nicely when Carmen smiled at her. Apparently, they'd gotten the best score out of all the teams for the plant identifying challenge.

From the red sofa, ChrystElle met her eyes and offered her an encouraging smile, too, and Emily smiled back, hoping that she'd be able to escape all of the lying, deceitful smiling soon.

Sitting on their green sofa, Jo and Alejandro were holding hands. Emily made a point not to look at them again; she'd only feel like saying something nasty to Jo, if she did, and noted that Brenda and John, at the blue sofa, weren't looking too happy about their result for the second challenge. Clever, smart Brenda had helped them to get the lowest score of the lot. _Way to go, Bren!_ Emily thought cattily, and felt like passing out.

When she got back to their room, she wasn't going to do anything but sleep. Tomorrow, she'd be allowed to eat again.

She tried to remember if she'd come by any rosemary in the garden, but all of her thoughts escaped her.

It was dark outside, and cold, and all she wanted to do was sleep.

She reached down to scratch her foot, and realised that she'd have to put of sleeping until she'd had another antihistamine tablet, which meant having water, which she really didn't want to have.

* * *

Back at their accommodations, Emily sat down at one of the stools in the kitchen with a glass of water and her card of antihistamine tablets, staring at the countertop without lifting a finger to her glass or the card of pills.

She wondered, staring at a spot on the laminated counter, if she could overdose on the pills; if, if she took enough of them, she'd make herself sick enough to be taken to hospital.

"These aren't the best," Lyle told her suddenly, as though he'd materialised out of thin air behind her, and reached over for the pills. "They're supposed to be non-drowsy, but they don't work as well as the others. When did you have your other one last?"

Emily turned around enough to snatch the pills back off him, and took a tiny little sip from her glass of water. "Go away," she muttered.

She took out one of the pills and swallowed it with a tiny gulp of water, before leaving to get to bed. She was still hungry – and it _hurt_ – but she wasn't eating until breakfast time.

* * *

"It's getting there," Lyle said, when his phone rang and he picked it up and pressed the button to answer, "but you can't expect this thing to go in five minutes."

He listened to the person on the other end for a while, then hung up. He was getting sick of this stupid game, but what could he do about it. It was bad enough as it was; if Jarod found out that his father and younger brother weren't where he'd been led to believe, he'd most certainly go after them in an attempt at a rescue, which was something that Lyle really, really didn't want. If they got Jarod, too, that was the end of it; it might as well be the end of everything, he thought. He couldn't imagine anything happening again like the last time.

Sure, he might have told Emily that what he was doing was trying to avert a bloody war, for goodness sakes, but what use would anything he said be to her; she'd either decide he was lying, or that he was trying to play them all somehow.

He glanced at Emily and refrained from sighing. "If we just give them this one thing that they want, they'll settle down again. We can't risk a war this time. We'd be outnumbered, and they wouldn't just declare that we convert to their cause. We never offered them that chance, it'll just be about revenge. And once they've got started, they won't stop until every last one of us is dead. I know you can't fully understand; you weren't around the last time, I'm in the same boat that you are on that count, but what the Center did to them, it was wrong from beginning to end, but it happened, and we can't change that, we can't undo the past, so we just… we just have to find away to… work around it eventuating.

"It is possible, it has to be possible, if we just want it to be. None of us can go through that again, least of all the way that the world is today. This isn't the 1900s anymore, or the 1920s, people are… There is no way, there's just no way! The only way is to give them the child and be done with it. If it's one of them, if it grows up with them, they'll treat it with as much respect that they do any of their children. It won't necessarily be a bad life; if it's known nothing else, it might even be tolerable. It's the _only_ thing we can do. Please try to understand."

He sighed, finally. "Maybe you'll even hate it. People do. It's nothing new. Maybe you won't even think of it, or miss it. And that'll be okay. You have to… please just don't make this any harder than it has to be. You don't even have to hate it; hate can be so taxing sometimes; just forget about it, that's all; just forget. Tell yourself there's nothing else you could have done, and let it go. It won't be a lie, it'll be the truth.

"I know you don't want to see your brothers hurt, or you father, and you don't want to see any of them used to hurt anyone else, whether by their own choice, or against their will. Think about it, okay. Just do that for me, just think about it. We can't afford this now, none of us can.

"We're supposed to be… there is no difference between us and them, or any of us and the rest of the world's population, not really, but if this campaign gets started… you and your family, or any of us… none of us will be safe, or happy… and that's not even getting on to the future that'll be waiting for our children, if they survive this. I am not kidding you. Not in the slightest. The last time, people died. A whole heck of a lot of people. It wasn't a war, really, there was no fighting, just people dying. This time, it'll only be worse. People don't get softer, not in real life, the ones that do end up dead; they only get worse.

"Get some sleep now. You'll feel better in the morning, I promise."

* * *

The Hive

Arizona

"You come bearing word of our endeavours?" Rooney's mother asked. "You might have chosen a kinder hour; the lateness of the hour draws on, my son."

"No, mother," Rooney replied. "I come to you on a more personal matter. I was hoping, if I might, to take Blake out for her birthday."

"What birthday is this?" his mother asked, annoyed. The girl had no birthday, as far she had been made aware. Had the girl suddenly remembered the date of her birthday but not her own name, the town of her birth? What ridiculousness was this!

"Well, I thought we should appoint her a birthday, mother. Don't you remember, so that she might obtain a membership with a library, or learn to drive?"

"Drive! Pff!" His mother waved a hand dismissively. "I don't want to hear of these things, child! I want to hear good news! Send your sister in, on your way out!" she snapped.

"Of course, mother," he replied. "Goodnight, mother."

"Pfft!"

He turned and left his mother's office quietly, stopping, on his way to his quarters, only to wait for the elevator, and to knock a few times on the door of his younger sister's quarters.

In no time at all, the door was pulled open and Penny poked her head out.

"Mother wishes to see you," he replied.

"Mom! Not great! Did she say what about?"

"No, she did not."

"Thanks!" Penny chirped. "Gotta fly! Ooo!" She spun back to face him at the corner. "Have you heard about the clone we nabbed from the Center? Of course you have! Have you seen it? Were you allowed to touch it?"

"He," Rooney corrected his younger sister. "He is a young man, Penny."

"A boy! Awesome! I can't wait! Gotta fly!" With that, she was off.

Rooney sighed, and made his way to his quarters. He'd actually been looking forward to taking Blake out for an evening, but apparently his mother wasn't happy unless she was locked away in some dungeon somewhere, safe and sound.

_Safe and sound… and dead_, he thought. He loved Blake more than anything, but his mother's antics were really starting to annoy him. He'd put up with them for long enough, and so, for that matter, had Blake. She wasn't just some kid – she was the Daughter of Nash! She was Blake Nash! And she deserved some respect, not his mother's same old rubbish.

So, she'd lost her first partner, her Chosen, in the sickness; she'd lost her three darling children. Wasn't he and Penny her children, also? Wasn't Blake her child? A child of her vision, of their corporation's vision?

She was acting as though it had all happened yesterday; she couldn't move on, and even though they'd never even been born to see it, she wouldn't let them move on, either.

It was killing him, but it only killed him all the more to see what it was doing to his loved ones, to his Chosen, and their children.

Suppressing a heavy sigh, he hoped the child that his mother wanted would be coming along very soon. The sooner that was over with, the sooner they'd all be able to move on with their lives.

Or at least try to.


	3. Chapter 3

DAY THREE

The Contest

Washington

It was early, early enough that he should still have been sleeping. It was, he decided, the pain that had woken him. They were up to something; what, he could not say, but something, and something painful. He needed to get away from it. Pushing Emily's hand from his arm – _Strange girl_ – he sat up and walked to the kitchen, hastily opening a drawer and searching for a knife.

Dropping the knife to the floor with a clatter several minutes later – it wouldn't work that way anymore, it wasn't going to be so easy from now on – he stood up and started looking from something he knew he wouldn't find. This wasn't his sister's place, and neither he nor Emily smoked. It wasn't even his childhood home; his mother had smoked, too.

Turning back to the door, he stilled suddenly.

"What are you doing?" Emily asked sleepily, evidently having woken only minutes ago, perhaps mere moments ago.

For a moment, he wondered how long she'd been standing in the doorway, then decided that it didn't matter. If she came near him, or tried to mother him, he'd have to yell at her. He couldn't have her touching him, she'd only make it worse.

The way he was going, pixie-sized or not, she'd only act as an antennae for the Empathic streaming. And that – he _didn't_ need!

He needed something to draw his attention back to where he was right now, back to exactly the spot he was standing in. He needed something that would hurt – a lot!

He might have yelled at her, got her a little frightened, said some truly crazy things, but that wouldn't have been enough.

He frowned, staring at her strangely. She was starting to look blurry and… He couldn't bring to mind the word. His hands were shaking, but he didn't notice. He needed… he needed…

_Stop it now, before it has the chance to-_

Spinning around swiftly, he strode back to the drawer and took out another knife – it didn't matter which – and stabbed it through the middle of his other hand.

Just like that, he returned to the kitchen, returned to his own pain. He was himself again, just himself.

"What the fucking Hell are you doing?" Emily screamed, and suddenly her pitch had shot up a notch as though she was only now coming to full terms with the extent of his lunacy, he thought.

"It's a c… company secret," he told her. "I can't tell you."

"What?"

"Can you… sew?"

She laughed hysterically, wildly.

"The… aliens…"

"There's no such thing as aliens!" she hollered, her eyes going too wide.

"Just because you've never… seen them… doesn't mean they're not… rea-" He shut up, just went completely silent.

It was back.

He felt sick. What the fuck was he supposed to do? That should have been the end of it; it should have stopped it.

He wrenched the knife out of his hand and lurched in the direction of the sink, feeling ill, really ill.

_Don't let it… don't let it pass… pass on…_

His sister had recently been working more intensively with Sydney to learn to live with her Inner Sense, and it wasn't helping him at all; she'd also opening up a few very dangerous channels she probably didn't even know existed between them, channels she had long ago shut down and forgotten about.

The problem was, now that she'd been the one to reopen them, he couldn't just shut them again. That was up to her, not him. The only thing was… they just didn't exist, in her books. And whilst they weren't the sort of channels that would result in manifestations of psychical trauma, they _were_ the sort that would Goddamn hurt!

And, damn it, he couldn't do anything to stop it! As a boy, he might have been able to pull shit like that, but he wasn't a boy anymore… it was getting harder and harder for him to work the way a person was supposed to work.

Sometimes, he would wake up in the middle of the night, certain that he'd been programmed with a time delay to refresh his protocols. That one day he would just wake up… as nothing. He'd just stop being a person.

He didn't find the thought in the least bit funny. He'd spent far too many years learning to be a person to give it up now, and, _damn it!_, didn't he deserve to be a person as much as anyone!

He felt his eyes start to turn in his head and held onto the sink edge tighter. He couldn't let it get away from him: killing Emily would only defeat the purpose!

_Think! Think, you idiot!_

In the past, he'd have been able to block out the Empathic streaming without so much as inducing the slightest bruise, the slightest hint of negative feedback. Months ago, even!

Things were really deteriorating fast!

_Bobby! Bobby, I don't know what to do! Please, I need you with me on this! For Mel!_

He might as well have been attempting telepathic communication with a brick wall, for all the response he got out of his alternate personality.

_B! You little fucking-!_

"Here."

Snapping out of his thoughts, he suddenly noticed that Emily had moved out of the doorway and was standing next to him, far, far too close.

She held out the tissue she'd got from somewhere. "Your nose is bleeding."

Predictably, and completely without forewarning, that was the moment his deranged little brother decided to 'help'.

Even if she'd wanted, Emily was no mind reader; she'd had no more warning as to Bobby's lunatic intentions than Lyle had until, suddenly, she'd realised that he hadn't leant closer to take the tissue she'd offered, and it was too late.

If it wasn't bad enough that he was probably traumatising Emily further by making her think he actually had some sick, twisted feelings for her – he was kissing her, after all – Bobby, in a fit of deranged genius, had decided to manufacture something that just wasn't there.

For a second, Lyle imagined murdering the little fuck in his sleep – he might have been his older brother, but Bobby had really overstepped his boundaries this time – until he realised that he was all alone; Bobby had gone, back to wherever he'd been hiding all these years; he wasn't doing anything at all.

With a sickening lurch of his stomach, Lyle realised that – What the fuck! – Emily and he shared a lot more than some crappy anomaly that had done exactly shit all good for either of them, they were also Convergence partners, kind courtesy of that same lousy anomaly. It was as good a time as any to pass out.

* * *

_Aren't you lucky you didn't kill her that first, or second, time you tried?_ he thought sarcastically, when he came 'round, to take his mind off the pain in his hand, and, actually, his head didn't feel that good, either.

_Oh, dead lucky!_

He wanted to laugh.

Or kill Bobby!

People weren't supposed to mess with their Convergence partner, it could only spell one thing: trouble. And that was something he didn't need more of!

If he had known that Emily was his Convergence partner, he'd have thought of some other way to get done what needed to be done. Sure, he was crazy as fuck, but even he wasn't that crazy.

Once he realised that he was definitely going to Hell this time – the sort of Hell he could believe in, anyway – he felt kinda like smiling. Well, didn't that just confirm it? He'd always had a sneaking suspicion that he was really a fucking idiot. What more proof did he need?

_Thanks a bunch, little brother! I really owe you one!_

Refraining from a sniff – he wasn't some little baby – he noticed that Emily had knelt down beside him and proceeded to bandage his hand up.

"What the fuck are you doing, cupcake?"

"You asked me if I could sew," she replied plainly. "I've made a few potpourri bears for the odd market stall, in the past."

"Well, that's sure comforting," he remarked sarcastically.

Without altering her tone at all, Emily asked, "Why did you kiss me?"

"Wasn't me," Lyle replied, not looking at her, but at his hand, with a heavy frown.

"It wasn't you?" Emily said, highly disbelieving.

He nodded, and winced. His head hadn't forgotten about him, even if he'd forgotten about it. _How thoughtful!_ "Alien consciousness."

"You're fucking kidding me!"

He shrugged. "Maybe it was Miss Parker's brother."

Emily glared at him in confusion and irritation; she didn't have the patience for his shit, frankly. Not at this hour, not at this moment!

"Maybe it's not mine. Maybe I've just… taken it over."

"What's not yours?" Emily snapped, before her good sense could kick in and advise her to keep her mouth shut; do not encourage delusional ramblings.

"This body," he answered, and yowled.

Emily let go of his hand – the pain dissipated a fraction – and shrugged. "Bullshit!"

"Do you have green antennae?" he asked tiredly, earning a hard punch in the arm.

"Maybe you're a fucking liar, surprise, surprise!" she sniped. "Why did you fucking kiss me?"

"I was kinda hoping you'd kill me," he replied dryly. "Bye bye, alien consciousness." He laughed, which only hurt his head all the more.

Emily didn't look pleased, or convinced.

"Bobby's got this thing for Tink." He rolled his eyes; so retarded! "He thinks you could be her cousin. Did I mention, also…" He laughed. "Well, you think I'm a bit of a - What would you call it? - womaniser? Well, B… wants to be just like big brother. He also happens to be my entirely charming other half. You wouldn't happen to have a gun on you, would you? Don't worry, I'm not going to kill him. Much!" He laughed.

"You're fucking mad!" Emily told him, shaking her head.

"Do you like the picture theatre? Bobby thinks you look like the kind of girl who likes the Movies. He was going to ask you out – before I stopped him!"

Emily laughed, unamused. "Don't hold your breathe waiting for a thanks," she hissed.

"No." He smiled. "Oh, and he asked me to ask you if you have magic powers?"

Emily stood up and walked off, over to the telephone.

Lyle leapt to his feet. "Don't-! Don't call anyone now! I'll… I'll see someone first thing in the morning, I don't feel like upsetting everyone at this hour. They'll all be sleeping."

Slamming the telephone receiver down, Emily pointed into the next room.

"The sofa, huh?" he asked, kind of hoping she'd change her mind at his a little bit sad voice.

"I don't trust you, or that loony 'brother' of yours!" Emily hissed.

"Gee, and here I was thinkin' you weren't a smart girl. I guess you jus' proved me wrong, huh, cupcake?"

"'Huh, cupcake' yourself!" she snapped, stalking out of the room.

He waited for the sound of the bedroom door slamming shut after her, and switched the kitchen light off, making his way toward the sofa. As per his excellent luck of late, he even managed to fall over the coffee table.

Emily stayed in the bedroom. He imagined she was quietly (but fiercely) hoping he'd smacked his head and would, when she came in in the morning, have bled to death.

He sat down on the sofa and tried to find Bobby again, but Bobby, it seemed, just didn't want to be found. Unfortunately, Bobby didn't really have a thing for Emily, just as he hadn't really had a thing for Tinker Bell; in fact, he'd never really had a thing for anyone, not even Ignacia, who'd been his girlfriend, or their mother, who'd been lonely and slightly, ever so slightly, cracked in the head. Even his devotion to their sister had been nothing more than something that people expected of a normal brother and sister, a normal set of twins. Perhaps, a tiny, tiny little bit, it had been something he'd picked up from their grandparents, something from an earlier era.

Or maybe it was just something of cracked Lyle's. He'd had a twin sister too. Before he'd decided to 'help' her kill herself; oh, the grief, she'd cared that much about some dumb boy that when he turned her down, she just hadn't wanted to go on living a second longer! But not him, not her twin brother. Him, she hadn't given a stuff about him! Well, he'd decided, why not help give her her dearest wish! He still cared for her, after all. Crazy fucking lunatic, alright!

With a shiver, Lyle decided it was probably time to get some sleep. He seemed to be alright now; he'd best get some sleep whilst he was still able.

Reaching a hand up to his mouth, he tested one of his teeth. It wobbled a little bit. Oh, wonderful!

He jammed his eyes closed, determined to get a little bit of sleep. It wasn't the old man, his Empathy filled him in; it was the kid.

He felt sick again.

_Go to sleep_, he told himself firmly, and imagined that he might dream of his aunt, Lyle's twin sister, Cheryl, and the old kitchen where she'd once helped him make cupcakes for a school _fête_. The memory was hazy, but he thought he might have been happy then, for just a little while, at least.


	4. Chapter 4

DAY THREE

The Hive

Arizona

Gemini might have tried for a little sleep, if the pain hadn't kept him from doing so. It was just there, always there; it wouldn't leave him alone for a second.

He tried to care what was happening with Charles, once, or Jarod, with anyone else, but his thoughts were unwilling to budge from the pain; it was just the pain. Pain, pain. The pain.

The world might have held thing beside pain, but not his world; maybe not ever, maybe it never had. He tried to remember how to spell that – 'pain' – but even such simple spelling evaded him.

He might have cried, if he'd had the energy, but the pain – the greedy pain – had taken all of that too, along with his care, along with his humanity.

The best of humanity was the ability to do things like stop and reconsider, but he'd been robbed of even that. The pain didn't stop. It went on. And on.

At first, he didn't realise that he was no longer alone, when the boy turned up in the room. At first, he didn't hear the song that the boy hummed. It wasn't anything he'd heard before… or was it?

In fact, he'd heard the song on the radio recently and had decided that he'd liked it; maybe even liked it enough to make it his favourite song.

The boy walked over to him, right over to him, and stopped to sit down on the bed beside him. (Even with the pain, he'd known that it wouldn't be acceptable to lie on the floor, or curl up in a corner like an animal.)

The boy placed a hand on his forehead, as though feeling for his temperature, and then… then strangely, he could feel the pain lessening, and he was finally able to take notice of the boy, to see him.

He was still humming that song, just as if they were the only two people in all the world who could hear, but his eyes had gone to the top of his head and he was very, very still.

_Never forget that they love you_, the boy told him, without really telling him. _Even when they think they don't, even when they might get mad at you, true love is stronger than hatred and anger. True love is something that can save a person's soul. They love you, Gemini._

Gemini didn't have to ask who they were. He knew who the boy meant; his family. The Major, Margaret, Jarod, Emily. Ethan?

_If you truly love someone, or if they truly love you?_ he wanted to ask, the pain had really lessened a lot, but, if the boy had been able to read thoughts or uncertainties, he made no reply. He wasn't humming the same song anymore; the song was now _Blue Moon_.

With the pain slipping away, bit by bit, Gem realised just how tired he'd been, and his eyes slowly closed.

* * *

The Contest

Washington

Lyle woke with a start. "Bobby, you stay away from that snai-!" He fell short. Where was his head? Apparently, somewhere else, he thought dryly. Bobby would hardly have been playing with some snail when _he_ was sleeping on the sofa, would he?

He winced and realised that, actually, he felt a bit better. His head, at least, felt better. His hand didn't.

He walked to the kitchen.

Emily was sitting at the counter, eating a bowl of fruit muesli with apple juice. "You know, talking to yourself is the first sign of madness," she droned, not bothering to look at him.

"I was talking to B-" He fell short, again. What was the difference, really? He knew she'd only ask him to define the difference.

"Bobby fancies himself a Frenchman?" Emily replied, uncaring.

"He doesn't- he doesn't like _eating_ snails, he thought putting them in his mouth would be a neat way to smuggle them out of the garden."

"'Smuggle them out of the garden'?" Emily asked, keeping her eyes on her breakfast, but at least sounding more interested.

"They're a 'pest', apparently. Mom wanted them poisoned. In typical fashion, Bobby decided getting snooty was the way to go. Snails were his friends, some shit like that."

Emily snorted. "I bet you've never done anything like that?"

"For an animal," Lyle laughed. "No way!"

"And there it is!" Emily commented. "You're a wonderful, feeling person! Anyone would think your parents decided you'd be more useful as an organ donor; you'd bring in more money that way – starting with your heart!"

Lyle turned and wandered out of the kitchen. He'd probably do well to have a look at his hand, he decided. He wasn't really in the mood to eat, not after Emily had brought up organ donation. Sometimes, she just didn't think. Kyle was her brother, yet she'd brought up something like that.

Maybe she'd done it on purpose, he thought. Maybe she'd meant to make it sound bitter or angry, but she'd been sleepy or something.

He suppressed a sigh. It wasn't likely. It was more likely that she just hadn't been thinking.

She didn't know how much shit he'd gotten into with the company over Kyle's death, after all. She didn't know how angry Ange had been at him; how much he'd wanted to rip him into little pieces, with just his teeth, or his claws. She didn't know how annoyed Raines had been, or the Chairman, or the Tower.

Kyle had been a pain in the ass, sure, but he'd been a Pretender, and he'd still had some measurable use in him yet. They hadn't even been able to recover the body, for Hell's sake!

Yeah, and all that was his fault.

Most of all, though, he'd felt how sad he'd made Bobby. He'd liked Kyle, he'd felt some connection with Kyle. All of the time he'd felt Bobby starting to venture back up from the depths, all the time he'd held hope that they might one day be able to talk, killing Kyle had really put a stop to that.

Bobby had disappeared, retreated so far inside that he hadn't even been able to feel him anymore. It was worse than with Miss Parker. He'd always been able to feel her presence on some level, but Bobby had completely withdrawn.

And then there'd been Jarod's feelings.

Maybe Jarod had hated him before, maybe he'd felt a strong, strong dislike for him, but taking out Kyle had totally solidified his opinion of him.

Sydney, even, had been colder toward him. Broots, of course, hadn't been any more pleased with his latest fuckup then he was with any of his fuckups or unsavoury activities, but he'd never known Kyle personally, so he'd just been angry; it never stops with him, does it!

Sydney had even ventured so far as to recommend re-education to the Tower, though Raines had put a stop to it pretty quickly. Re-education was an idiot pursuit, it didn't give a person anything to reflect on, and it didn't change their nature at all except possibly to make them push everything down into their subconscious, waiting for the opportune moment to sprung back up and wreak all manner of ungodly havoc!

For what it was worth, he actually hadn't minded the thought himself, but he'd worried how Bobby would take re-education, so he hadn't raised any objections to Raines's course of action. He'd known, almost from the first time she'd laid eyes on him as an adult, that his sister would not be able to care for him how Bobby had cared for her all those years she'd never known he'd existed, all those years she'd let herself forget about him, her childish, onetime imaginary friend. In his own way, Lyle thought, the little creep might even have been in love with her.

He might have said a lot of things to Miss Parker, might have acted in a completely inappropriate manner, but he'd never really felt that sort of attraction to her; it was all part of the act he knew it was safest to maintain. Safer than to have her trust him, safer than to have them believe she trusted him, than to have them believe she believed them twins. They were not, in fact, twins. As far as he was concerned, that was the line he had to keep going with the Tower. He was obsessed with her in some unhealthy way, but not because he cared about her, because he was thinking of her; he was only thinking of himself.

Bobby, on the other hand, he wasn't sure about.

Bobby, he worried about.

But maybe it wasn't Miss Parker Bobby had been in love with, maybe it had been Kyle.

He was hardly comforted.

He shuddered to think that Bobby would develop some unhealthy thing about Emily seeing that she was Kyle's little sister. In any case, she was _his_ Convergence partner; Bobby could just… stay away like he usually did. He'd only fuck things up worse, Lyle was sure. After all, what the Hell did he know about girls? He was a little weirdo, he got sooky about a snail that died of poisoning, or if someone stopped on an ant; he thought girls were cute and funny, maybe like a teddy bear, he'd save up his pocket money just so he could buy them mints, he'd go along with all of their little schemes to play boyfriends and girlfriends, but only because that was what teenagers did, only because he didn't want to see them get hurt by some stupid boy who might actually have ended up breaking her heart (and realising what an idiot he'd been to do it, when he actually kinda liked her, too), only because… it was hard having friends when you had to worry that they were unhappy, when you had to think up nice, encouraging things to say to them, without being patronising.

Reaching the bathroom, Lyle sat down on the edge of bathtub and frowned at the wall. Sometimes, he thought that Bobby and he weren't really that different at all; sometimes, he wondered just how human he was.

Maybe it was all just made up? Maybe it only hurt because he knew it should, because he wanted it to, because that was what happened with people? Maybe he was only happy about things because you couldn't always be hurt, and sulking? Maybe the only thing he was was contrived, disgustingly contrived.

_Come now_, he told himself silently in his most assuring voice, _negativity's not going to get you anywhere or anything but a whole lot more of negativity._ And, because it was what people sometimes did, he allowed himself to feel reassured (and told himself he wasn't sad, at all; he was perfectly fine, thank you).


	5. Chapter 5

DAY THREE

Bellman's Pharmacy

Delaware

Miss Parker attempted to shrink behind an aisle in the perfume section, though, though she was extraordinary tall, in fact, she liked to think of herself somewhat short, when not on high heels, the aisle was just that bit shorter than her. Fighting a blush, she tried to look busy perusing the perfumes on offer, rather than associating herself with the old man and the blonde woman who were arguing loudly a few aisles over.

She really didn't need another of Raines and Fulton's arguments. It seemed like whenever Fulton saw him, she was ready with some other argument to start. People might have said that Cherry was a strange one – and far too obsessed with William Raines for her own, or anyone else's, good – but Fulton really took the cake. She could just not refrain from starting an argument whenever she so much as saw Raines, it was doing Miss Parker's head in.

She'd have loved to have stormed over there and slapped Fulton, but she didn't think Fulton would have appreciated that, so she refrained, thinking about the fun her brother was surely having in Washington and thinking it a real pity that vampires and werewolves weren't real.

Taking a quick peek in their direction, Miss Parker noticed that Raines had on the expression he always had on when Fulton lost it big time, calm and collected, and every bit the shrink that his company card made out he was. Sydney would have laughed if he'd seen it; Miss Parker wasn't laughing though. The pair of them were insufferable, and, if they weren't careful, the lot of them would be thrown out of the pharmacy – for good! Miss Parker didn't particularly like that idea.

Deciding that it was time for a change of scenery, she strode along the aisle until she reached the end of it and headed in Raines's direction. When she got close enough, she grabbed his arm and yanked him away from Fulton, hissing, "Did you forget that I'd told you that there was something I wanted to show you, Daddy?"

Fulton fell silent and fixed her with a death glare for interrupting a conversation she'd been having with her boss, but Miss Parker just marched off, dragging Raines after her.

"Why do you stick around to have her yell at you like that?" she snapped, once they'd moved far enough away that they were out of Fulton's earshot. "It's Goddamn embarrassing!"

Raines frowned thoughtfully and turned his attention to the nearby food court.

"I need a coffee!" Miss Parker sighed heavily.

* * *

Rhodes Medical Clinic

Washington

"Don't play with that! It's not even _recent_!" Emily snapped, taking the magazine off Lyle. "You're going to be called any minute. Did you hear Carmen?"

"What does it matter if it's recent or not?" Lyle asked, annoyed. "And I don't care how angry Carmen is. She can find herself a distemper shot! Uppity-"

"Shhhh!" Emily hissed. She didn't want to start trouble with the other people sitting near them.

He rolled his eyes. He was really scared of some 17-year-old schoolgirl and saleswoman from one of those discount retail stores! It wasn't even as though people cared what anyone else said in public these days, in any case. They never cared when the schoolkids started fights right in front of them. All they said was, 'Don't interfere, they'll only turn on you, then you'll be sorry.'

The young people were supposed to be the future, but where was their decorum, where was the respect for them so they'd feel like they were people, too, and should act like it. They couldn't behave like real people because no-one expected it of them, no-one gave them even half a chance.

He sighed and reached for the magazine again.

Crossing her arms, Emily stood up and walked to the pharmacy adjacent.

He shook his head. _Lovely, patient girl she was_, he thought.

* * *

"They weren't very happy," he filled Emily in, when he'd been let out of the doctor's office and had gone to find Emily in the pharmacy.

She was fiddling with some coins, thinking about getting herself something from the vending machine, a cold drink maybe.

"I'll get you something in town," he told her. "Don't waste your money. Those things are always ridiculously overpriced."

She glared at him and recrossed her arms.

"Look, it's fine now," he told her. "Do you want something for lunch?"

Through her teeth, Emily asked, "Did you get some more antipsychotics?"

He sighed. "No, Emily, I can't take antipsychotics. I had a shot and some disinfectant, that's it. You did a good job with the stitches."

"I wanted to be a nurse!" Emily hissed, before turning and stalking out of the pharmacy.

"The doctor prescribed antibiotics, just in case, but I guess I can pick them up after lunch," he said, walking after her quickly.

"I can't believe you're allowed to drive," Emily breathed in irritation, "with your _condition_."

He shrugged. "I haven't told the registry office."

Emily glared at him darkly. Oh, wasn't that just law-abiding of him!

* * *

Pony's Country Café

Washington

"It's warm in here, yeah?" Lyle asked.

Emily, taking a seat across the table from him, shot him a funny look. "No," she said blandly.

"No? Oh well." He took his cell phone out, then put it away again. Miss Parker wouldn't appreciate his calling to ask her how she was; besides, it wasn't the sort of thing he did in real life. It was a nice thought, but that's all it was.

He hummed along to a country song on the radio absently, wondering when his head was going to stop hurting. He'd had a bottle of water and two paracetamol tablets, but so far nothing had changed.

Emily stirred three teaspoons of sugar into her mug of black coffee, probably thinking about her lunch. He hadn't ordered anything; he wasn't hungry. "Why aren't you having anything?" Emily asked finally.

"Not hungry," he replied.

"So what? Get something anyway. Do you want half of my sandwich?"

She wasn't getting a sandwich, it had another name, though it _was_ basically that. "No."

Emily stared at the biscuit on the side of her saucer, annoyed for some reason. "Didn't they used to give you mints?" She lifted her eyes from the biscuit sitting on the side of the saucer and shot him a disapproving look. "Would you give it a rest with that song already? Do you need to advertise to the whole world that you hail from Bumpkinville?"

"It wasn't exactly-"

"Oh, who _cares_!"

"How's your mom?"

"How should I know, idiot!"

He shrugged. "You're sure you're not hot?"

She shot him an unimpressed look. Sure, she wouldn't know if she was hot or cold? Idiot! She reached an arm over the table to feel his head. "You're not hot, either," she told him, "you're just an attention-seeker!"

He didn't say anything.

When the waitress came over with Emily's order, she smiled at her and moved her coffee to the middle of the table to make room for the plate.

"Behave yourself today, and don't let your Gym teacher push you into anything," Lyle told a 15-year old on her way past.

She laughed and ignored him. Sure, whatever! Outside the café, she turned back to the door and came back in. Stopping by their table, she shot Lyle an annoyed look. "What's it to you!"

To Emily's slow, growing horror, he reached over a hand and placed it over her heart. "Just say, 'No.'"

The girl stared at his hand and frowned. "He won't-"

"Then walk out. Talk to your principal. He shouldn't be in a job like that, he's obviously a menace. If he's unable to tell the difference between honesty and lies, he isn't suited to working with other people, let alone young people."

"You _don't_ know him!"

"Then maybe I should have a word with him," Lyle replied, getting to his feet.

"What?" the girl cried suddenly.

"It's your body, Cainey, not his. Do you want to die, or are you going to put him back in his place?"

Cainey stared at him. "You can't jus-"

"Yes you can, Cainey. People do all the time. People your own age."

"I don't know you!"

"Then we just say you're my niece."

"My mother doesn't have a brother," Cainey protested.

"On your father's side."

"I _don't know_ my father."

"But you know me. No problem."

"Yes problem!" the girl protested. "The school reckons if you don't have a kid enrolled then you can just shut it!"

"I see."

"Don't start a war!" Cainey implored. "I don't even _know_ you!"

"You don't have to know me, love. You're a person; I'm a person. I promise not to start a war, yeah?"

Cainey got a look like she was putting some real thought into it, then she looked at Emily. "Is she your wife?"

"No, my wife is dead."

"Is she your girlfriend?"

"We're acquaintances, Cainey."

"Okay, then…" She frowned. "My mom's a lawyer. She'd lose it."

"Do you have an after-school job?"

The girl nodded.

"So we say I work there occasionally."

"But why do you care! Everyone will think we're… together or something!"

"Look, why shouldn't I care, Cainey?"

Cainey shrugged. She didn't know why, it was just really, really weird.

"Lyle!" Emily whispered, trying to keep her voice as low as possible. "We don't have-"

"Go on without me," he told her, digging out the car keys and putting them down on the table.

"You're going to get the both of us into serious trouble, not to mention that girl!" Emily hissed.

"Somebody has to stand up to these idiots."

"Not you! Carmen will kill you!"

"I'd like to see her try!" He turned his attention back to Cainey. "I promise I won't get you in any trouble. We'll work this out."

Much to Emily's horror, the girl nodded and led the way out of the café. Emily dropped her gaze to her lunch angrily and snatched the keys from the tabletop. Lunatic!

* * *

The Contest

Washington

"What is he playing at?" Carmen hissed. "How can you not know where he went?"

Emily shrugged helplessly. She was sick of taking the rap for her lunatic partner. "I don't know," she replied, the same as she had the last two times.

"Calm down, ladies, I'm right here," Lyle said, walking over. "I decided I'd get the antibiotics, after all. Just in case I needed them. It's better to have them to, when you need them, be without."

"What took you?" Emily hissed angrily.

"I had a little discussion with the pharmacist."

"Why!"

"It would have been impolite-"

"Then be impolite!"

Carmen shook her head, placing a hand on Emily's arm. "It's all good now, Emily. It's already forgotten. Just make sure you're ready for the next challenge, alright."

* * *

The Center

Delaware

"How are you feeling, Mel?" Raines asked, leaning toward her as though to feel her head.

Shooting him a quick glare, she snapped, "What have I said about that name! There's _nothing_ wrong with me!"

Raines frowning, giving her answer some thought. "No, I suppose you're right."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she growled.

"It doesn't feel… right… for you."

She glared at him sharply, then pulled a face. "What are you talking about?"

"It's your brother, I think."

She laughed. "I hope he dies!" Turning on her heel, she strode away from him, coffee in hand, headed for Sydney's office.

Raines suppressed a sigh. She really had no idea, did she?

* * *

The Contest

Washington

"What's wrong with you?" Emily growled, grabbing his arm and trying to pull him up from the sofa.

"I just don't feel well," he snapped.

Emily let go of his arm and put out a hand to feel his forehead. "You're not ho-" She sighed heavily, then turned and walked out of the room, calling after her, "Where did you put those antibiotics, you've got a bit of a temperature?"

When he didn't reply, she walked off and had a look in the bathroom cabinet behind the mirror, before getting a glass of water from the kitchen and returning to the lounge room.

She left the glass on the table and took out the amount of pills the sticker on the front of the packet recommended. "Would you rather a fruit juice, or something?" she asked, passing him the glass of water.

He got up and walked away.

"Look, you have to take your stupid pills!" she snapped, suddenly annoyed.

"They're not going to help," he told her. "Stay away from me." They must have decided that he'd outstayed his welcome, and now they'd devised a way to take him out of the picture. He didn't think it was anything that could catch, but he didn't rally like to take that chance. He had a feeling that they'd be paying a visit soon, too.

He stared at the window in front of him that had dissolved into a blurry mass of blue that could well have been anything.

"Fuck you!" he heard Emily hiss, then stalk out, slamming the door after her. He should have been nicer to her; she wouldn't be feeling so great either, not now that that idiot Bobby had decided to show them that they had Convergence together, whether or not Emily had any idea of it or not; the connection was still there.

He stared at the blurry glass in front of him, trying to reach out to feel anything. They _would_ come, he knew, it was just a matter of time.

A few minutes later, without nothing to show for his efforts but an even more painful headache, he walked to the coffee table and decided to take his antibiotic anyway, and washed the glass out in the kitchen sink and left it on the draining board before deciding to lie down. He was tired, all of a sudden.

* * *

"He's whingeing about feeling sick," Emily told Carmen, the annoyance in her tone ratcheting up a couple of notches.

Carmen shook her head. He was obviously going to be nothing but one huge problem after another. If they let him go and left him alone, maybe he'd get sick of the game and decide to give it up.

"He's not sick!" Emily told her.

Carmen sighed. "Look, why don't you pop over to see the medical officer anyway. Just as a precaution."

Rolling her eyes, Emily stomped off. Great! Yeah, just as a precaution!

* * *

The medical officer, it turned out, was attending to another contestant and so Emily got landed with a different person than the woman she'd seen last time.

This was another woman. She had a trustworthy face, Emily thought, listening to each of the woman's words with careful attention. The woman wasn't as young as the other woman, but she wasn't awfully old looking, either. She might have been in her middle forties, or even her later thirties; it was hard to say. In any case, Emily felt much safer with her than she had felt with the first medical officer she'd seen.

* * *

"I would like to see the other, also," Blake told the man accompanying her.

Rooney frowned, not liking the idea that she'd mentioned. "It is not necessary, Blake," he replied.

"Nonetheless," she rebutted.

He suppressed a sigh, shaking his head.

"What did you give him?" Blake asked, as they walked.

"The same thing that they gave us," he replied. "I doubt it'll do much, until the time comes that he needs Healing, of course," he added. It had been his mother's idea; she'd found it poetic, really. He'd said nothing.

Blake stopped and turned to fix him with a deep look, the sort of look that he would have been perfectly fine with any other day, if he hadn't got the feeling that this time she wasn't particularly pleased by his mother's choice of weapon. "We are not murderers, Rooney!" she said. "I must convey my disapproval of this scheme!"

He frowned. "It is done now, in any case."

"This is barbaric, Rooney!"

"Shhh," he told her quietly.

"Why should I remain silent?" she protested, her voice taking on a sudden anger.

"You do not want mother to hear you saying such things!" he warned her.

She laughed, her eyes sparkling in a way that still hurt his heart to see, fuelled by anger or not. "Would you have me put down as you had Anora put down!" she challenged.

A dark look came into his eyes. "Do not say such things, Blake!" he growled, as his heart hurt all the more. "You know the reason Anora died! You know we did not have her 'put down'!"

"To the contrary, I know no such thing," Blake replied lightly, and continued walking.

Rooney said nothing in return. He was not looking forward to his mother asking him of their conversation later.

* * *

Blake froze and he had to be quick not to walk into her. "He is a Healer!" she cried.

"Nonsense," he replied. "He is no such thing."

Blake shook her head, the pain of the other already reaching out its arms for her, dragging her in.

Rooney frowned, genuinely confused. The man was not a Healer, he'd had some of their best people confirm it. He couldn't understand, then, this reaction to the serum. "I do not understand."

Blake turned forcibly and walked stiffly back the way they'd come. "We must leave," she said, and that was all she said.

Rooney did not argue. They had the woman, in any case; they had what they'd come for, and, as a bonus, they would not have to give up the old man and the boy.

As they walked, he pretended not to see Blake's tears. Her job was about helping people, not about killing them. If she did not look angry on the outside, he knew that she was _furious_ on the inside.

He refrained from a tired sigh, and wondered if, perhaps, the man was a double possessor. Perhaps he was a Healer and it was only that his Healing was secondary to his primary expression, perhaps it was very weak.

Who was he to argue with his mother, in any case? Who was he to dispute her choices, her leadership?

Sometimes, he thought, Blake forgot the politics involved in it all; sometimes, she took too much for granted. She may have been the Daughter of Nash, but Nash had also deserted them when they'd most needed him!

As the pair passed Carmen, he offered her a nod. She would receive her money. After all, what was a few hundred thousand dollars to them?

Reaching the vehicle, he nodded to the Reaper who'd come to report to him that the woman was still unconscious. All was well.


	6. Chapter 6

DAY THREE

The Center

Delaware

"You've got to be out of your zombie mind!" Miss Parker laughed, then, seeing that Raines was deadly serious about her accompanying him to Washington, she let the laughing drop. "Family vacation! Don't I _love_ those!" she enthused darkly. "I assume we're taking the company jet. Tell me there's hard liquor! I need a drink!"

"Now, now, my girl, we both know that drinking on the job is frowned upon," Raines reminded her, which only made her feel like biffing him.

"Oh, you can _so_ talk!" she muttered darkly, then turned and stalked away. If she was going out trekking in the wilderness, then she'd at least need her coat, gun preferable.

"Miss P!" Broots cried, as she stormed past him without stopping. "We-we have a lead?"

"Go back to sleep," she muttered. Then stopped and turned back to face him, "No, Broots, we do not have a lead. I'm off to bail our favourite little psycho out of trouble, _again_!"

"Cox?" Broots wondered aloud.

"Lyle!" Miss Parker half yelled. "God, Cox- I won't even get started on _him_! Frankie the fox, I think not! More like Frankie the freak! Have you heard- What the Hell, I have to go!"

"I heard that one of the Sweepers overheard him talking with Diane on the telephone!" Broots called after her.

"No way!" she shouted back. "And it's Dian_a_!"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes! Now get back to work! I want a lead by the time I get back from Washington! A _good_ lead!" Shaking her head, she suppressed a heavy sigh. Couldn't Broots get anyone's name right? First it was Sarah, his own _daughter's_ best friend, whose name was in actual fact Silvana, though Debbie was always calling her Silvie; now it was Diana! She shuddered to think what-

Spinning back around, she called out, "Hold up! Are you seriously dating someone online?"

Broots nodded and shouted, "Her name is Marlon!"

"No it isn't!"

"It is!"

Miss Parker laughed. "And you're entirely sure she _is_ a she!"

"Entirely!"

"You little weirdo!"

"I appreciate the sentiment, Miss Parker!"

"You would!" She sighed, turning back in the direction of her office and stepped back quickly, shooting Sydney a small glare. "I suppose you were hoping I step on you!" she muttered.

"Not at all," Sydney replied levelly. "I was merely wondering why Mr. Broots and yourself were talking so loudly and from so far a distance apart when you might have stepped a little closer and lowered your voices to a sensible level."

"Because I'm going to my office to get my cloak and dagger, then I'm off!"

"Off to where, if I may ask?"

"Washington," she replied sourly, and slipped past him quickly. "BTW, Cox and Diana are getting married – _very_ soon!"

* * *

The Company Jet

On Route to Washington

"So tell me," Miss Parker said, glancing across at Raines who was – annoyingly – reading a psychology journal with his even more annoying reading glasses, "if cloning is a reality, then why haven't you cloned your wife, or Annie?"

Closing the journal he was reading, Raines frowned and shook his head. "Because Edna and Anora are dead, and cloning them isn't going to bring them back."

"Right, so they've gone to Heaven, have they?" she snapped sarcastically.

"Who can say? Gemini is Jarod's clone, not Jarod. They are entirely separate minds, my girl."

"Hang on, I thought shrinks didn't believe in the mind, only the brain!"

"So burn me at the stake, what do I care what 'shrinks' believe in! I believe in what I believe in, not what someone has written in a book that I should believe in, Missy. I'm an adult, I'm not a child."

"If you were an adult," she hissed, "then you would know that playing by the rules is the only way to keep your job!"

"So I don't advertise my beliefs to the world, simple as that."

"Oh, simple as that!" she shot angrily.

"I'm a Healer, little Cat. We believe in the mind."

"And I'm a Pretender! I shouldn't! You're becoming quite the bad influence, so cram it!"

"Did I start this-" He sighed, "Forget it, Kit."

"My name is not Kit, or 'little Cat', it's Miss Parker!" she hissed.

"I am well aware of what your name is, Miss Parker," he told her, returning his attention to his journal.

"Go to Hell!"

"One day, my dear, one day."

* * *

Kingsford G. Morton Hospital

Washington

"Isolation!" Miss Parker enthused, glancing around her in distaste at the hospital surrounds. "Oh, boy, am I ever excited!" She snickered darkly. "What's to betting it'll turn out to be some nasty venereal disease!"

Raines shot her a sharp look, glancing at the doctor who had been appointed to show them to Lyle's hospital room.

She made an apologetic face. Oops! "Do you know what it is?" she asked the doctor in a worried, slightly more-girly-than-usual voice. "It's just… We're twins, you see, and I'm really worried!"

"At this point, I'm afraid we're still working on figuring that out, Miss…"

"Parker," she supplied.

"I'm sorry."

"Can I see him?" she asked, the whine in her voice shooting up several notches.

"From what we've been able to tell, it isn't contagious, so I don't see why not."

She nodded, smiling a little bit.

Raines shook his head. "If we could have some time alone, doctor…" he replied, to which the doctor nodded. As soon as he'd shown them where to go.

"I'm afraid he isn't conscious at the moment, however," the doctor added.

"As expected," Raines replied, earning a _Now that didn't sound sus at all!_ look from Miss Parker.

* * *

Miss Parker turned to watch the doctor depart, then spun back around to face Raines. "He's gone. What do you think-" She made for the hospital room door but was held back by Raines, who'd suddenly gripped her arm very tightly. "Let go of my-" she began, falling short at the sight of his eyes.

"We should remain here," he replied, turning his suddenly very, very blue Healer's eyes on her.

"Were you listening to anything the doctor said?" she snapped, annoyed. "It isn't contagious!"

"That depends."

"On what?"

"Oh whether you are a Healer or not," he said, and there was no hiding the subdued tone in his voice.

Miss Parker's eyes shot to the window quickly. "But Lyle isn't," she said, trying to keep any hint of argument from her voice, she just wanted to hear Raines's answer, "so why should he have… the sickness?" She'd never heard of it given any other name.

"Because he isn't a Healer _exactly_, little Cat, but he isn't anything else exactly, either."

She turned to stare at him suddenly. "What are you talking about? I thought he was a Pretender!"

"Not exactly."

"Then what _is_ he? He- We're _twins_! How can he _not_ be a Pretender! I thought that was how it worked with twins – shared expression!"

"In general, yes."

She shook her head.

"The company would categorise him as an Empath," Raines replied finally.

She laughed. "You- you can't help him, though! You'll get sick, too, if you- try! You can't do anything! You have to… let the sickness runs its course!"

"Its course is to kill Healers, Miss Parker," Raines told her. "How can I allow that to happen to… your brother? You are my daughter."

Fixing him with a particularly serious look, she chimed, "Step back, pops. There's nothing you can do."

"You're so sure about that, are you?" he replied. "Did I ever tell you the story about how I killed your mother?"

* * *

Miss Parker took out her gun and trained it on him. "Don't move!"

"Look, darling, if I'm not up for the job, then what good am I? You might as well shoot me where I stand."

She shook her head. If her mother was alive, and that was what he'd just _told_ her – that, after shooting her, he'd somehow been able to Heal her again, good as almost new – then he wasn't going anywhere! She wanted to see her mother again, and he was possibly the only one who could help that happen. She wasn't letting him do something stupid to prevent that from eventuating.

"Mel, I have to make this right. If my suspicions are correct, then I'm guessing that this was a T-Corp job, and we're going to have to ask your darling little brother how he managed to get himself in so much trouble with our dear friends when he's feeling well enough to answer our questions; so step aside and let me do my job, love!"

"Don't. Move," she breathed.

"Oh, this is getting beyond moronic, Melody!"

"Do you want me to shoot you!" she growled.

"Do you want me to suck the life out of you?" he asked, waving his fingers at her.

Her eyes widened. "You-"

"I see, I can't do that either, I suppose," he replied.

"You can't be-"

"But I can! Now step aside before I make you!" he growled in his suddenly deep voice, his teeth sharpening.

She shook her head. "No, you can't be a Reaper! You can't be both! I know- I know there's a paradox!"

"The Paradox is a lie, Mel! Rubbish! Nothing but rubbish! Just because something is improbable doesn't make it impossible. You of all people should know that best. Come to your senses, let me help your idiot brother and we'll figure out how to sort all of this mess out when we come to it."

"You're not our father," she said.

"Mel, all of this is trivial. Let me do my work, yes."

"It's not trivial to me! You lied! Again! You always lie!"

"It is what I do best, you may have a point there, my dear. We will talk once I have seen to your brother."

"If he even is my brother!" she laughed. "If you even live that long!"

"It'll all work out, you'll see," he assured her, and she lowered her gun, half hoping that the both of them died. She had about enough of the never-ending lies that she could take; it was time for a change.

* * *

"Do you think he'd notice if we left? Just for a little while? We could get coffees!"

Miss Parker spun about and stood staring at the teenage boy standing next to her.

"Hello!" he replied brightly.

"What are you…"

"The same thing you're doing, I suppose," the boy answered. "Hospitals and me… we're not the best of friends. Do you have coins? I'm sorta broke…"

"I don't… What's your name? You can hardly expect me to go off anywhere with you when I don't know your name," Miss Parker finally said.

"Bobby. B-O-B-B… Y!" He smiled. "So retarded, Bobby! Spelling and me… not the best of friends, either. Coffee… might help!"

She frowned. "You don't think I know a swindle when I hear one, Bobby?"

He bit his lip, managing a taken aback expression. "That was so major-ly lacking in subtleness!" he laughed. "Can we get coffee anyway?"

"You've had coffee before?" she asked.

He nodded. "At church, and bingo, and-"

"And… no," she shook her head. "You're lying again."

He frowned. "What- what did I lie about before?"

She shook her head again. "Doesn't matter."

"They took the girl. AON-559. Colorado. But… but they're not going to Colorado, they're going to… Ar-Arizona. And… and they upset Annie. She wasn't happy about the serum, she said they were better than that, they weren't barbaric like the Center, but the man… he said something like, It's already done, and they couldn't undo it anyway, and… And they left. Mercedes-B-Benz, 2002, black, SUV. She… she's Cooper's daughter. We can't let them keep her."

"Ramble, ramble, ramble," Miss Parker muttered. "Who's Cooper?"

"Discovered… Cooper discovered the anomaly… Isolated. Isolated is the better word. They called it Cooper's Anomaly, but… but they don't call it that anymore, now they call… It's called A57." He frowned, turning to look up the hall. "S… sister of Jarod and Kyle."

"Emily?" Miss Parker asked. "They took Emily?"

"Emily? Yes, Emily. 33. Red hair, green eyes-"

"Why did they want Emily?" she cut him off.

"Not Emily, the child," Bobby replied. "Emily isn't a Pretender, she's boring. They wanted a Pretender like Jarod. She's Jarod's sister, maybe her child would be a Pretender, also." He sighed. "They're going to be upset."

"Why will they be upset, Bobby?" Miss Parker asked.

"She's not a Pretender."

"But they already know that, Bobby."

Bobby frowned. "The child."

She nodded slowly. "Uh-huh, well… that's a different kettle of fish, then, isn't it?"

"Can we have coffee? I want to try coffee."

She sighed. "How can you have coffee? You're not real."

"If I want to be," Bobby replied, and he put his hand out in front of him.

"What?" Miss Parker shook her head. Very slowly, she reached out her own hand until she could touch the boy's. "Oh, you are real…" she said.

"Yes! Are we having coffee now?"

Pulling herself together, she sighed and nodded. "Yes. Let's have coffee. Why not?"

Bobby laughed. "My brother says that a lot."

"What?" she asked.

"'Why not.'"

* * *

Paper coffee cup in hand, Miss Parker rounded the corner that led to her brother's hospital room and slowed, spying Raines standing outside the door, presumably waiting on her return. "How did it go?" she asked, noticing that his eyes had gone even paler than Cox's.

He shook his head.

Hurrying around the corner and stopping next to her, Bobby turned suddenly to stare at the door with a serious frown. "Where is my brother?" he asked, drawing a blank look from Raines. "He better not have run- Alright, I want to know, which way did he go?"

"He didn't go anywhere," Miss Parker told him in a lowered voice. "He's dead."

Bobby stared at her weirdly. "B… S!"

"It's not bullshit, Bobby, it's the truth."

Bobby shook his head. "No it isn't. He always gets better. He always does."

"He's dead," Miss Parker repeated.

"No!" Bobby whined. He wasn't going to believe anything she said. He just wasn't. He wasn't listening to her. He turned to look at Raines, instead. "I want my brother!"

"Who is this?" Raines asked, ignoring the boy and addressing Miss Parker.

"He says his name is Bobby," she replied dryly.

Raines took a step toward them both and addressed Bobby, "Bobby, do you know who I am?"

Bobby looked away from him, at one of the walls. "No. I want my brother. I don't know you. I don't know any of you. No."

"Bobby? Bobby, this isn't a game!"

"I just want my brother," Bobby said, still not looking at him.

"Well you can't have him. He's gone."

Miss Parker shook her head, turning to look behind her along the corridor, and jumped when Bobby squealed loudly. For God sakes, how old was he!

"Bobby, stop that! You know you're not like that! It's just something your parents said, it isn't real."

"I want my brother. I don't want anyone else. I want my brother."

Miss Parker stepped over to him quickly and lowered her voice. "Bobby? Bobby, listen to me. Lyle was my brother, too. Do you know what that means? I'm your sister. Do you understand what I'm saying, Bobby?"

"Don't pander to him," Raines told her angrily, earning a glare from her.

"Bobby, you said we had to help Emily. Let's go do that, okay."

Bobby sniffed, finally looking at her. "Before they reach the facility," he said in a suddenly serious voice. "We can't help her when they take her to the facility. We have to go now."

Checking her watch, she suddenly noticed the lateness of the hour. If they were going to get Emily back, they didn't have long left to do so.

When she reached over to take Bobby's hand, she noticed suddenly that he wasn't holding his coffee anymore, and dropped her hand back to her side.


	7. Chapter 7

DAY THREE

Kingsford G. Morton Hospital

Washington

With a sigh, Raines snapped his cell phone shut and nodded to Miss Parker. They could leave now, he'd alerted the proper people to all the necessary procedures.

Miss Parker didn't move from the spot she'd been standing in moments earlier, waiting for the elevator to arrive. Just for a split second, she almost reached out to take Bobby's hand, then she decided, no, that wouldn't work, anyway, he was dead, he just didn't know it yet, he was still too upset over losing his brother. "What do you mean, have the body disposed of? Why are you burning him?"

Raines shook his head, unimpressed at her lack of speed on this thing. "Miss Parker, your brother's body is carrying an infectious disease. We've got to take the proper measures, the appropriate steps to safeguard the general, wider public, as well as ourselves in the event that this thing backfires. We're not trying to start something here, we're taking care of it. The start of something is the last thing we need now. Do you understand? Is anything I'm saying getting through to you? I know you've just lost your brother, your _twin_, yes, it's all very tragic, but you're not helping matters any by acting dim-witted."

For a second, before she could slip the mask back on over her features, she stared at this man who proclaimed to be her father, a man she'd known nearly her entire life, and she didn't know him at all. This man frightened her. And then the mask fell, perfectly into place.

"I've rung around; they're sending in teams to scope out this thing, nobody slips through the net. We can't let this thing get out. As for the girl, I've informed our people in Arizona of the situation. The girl is ours, she's been working for us for five months, we've got it all set up. We've had someone input all of this into the Triumvirate database. If they try to take her now, they'll be getting themselves into a lot of hot water that they don't want right now."

He nodded to Bobby. "What do we do with him?"

"He's with me," she replied.

"If you insist. We'll be on our way then, shall we?"

As she watched him step into the elevator before her, Miss Parker fully imagined that he'd been harbouring his own agenda all of these years, kept well hidden and out of sight (and mind) under layers and layers of deceit and scheming. What the agenda was, however, she could not begin to guess at.

* * *

The Moor Hotel

Washington

It was rather later than opportune when they finally booked into a hotel for the night, and Miss Parker had to fight not to yawn. She'd have gone straight to the kitchenette and whipped herself up a strong cup off coffee if she'd been staying on her own, but she'd been landed with the boy, and she didn't want to keep him up all night by being up until all hours herself. He wasn't going to hurt her now; she doubted he could so much as touch her. He was an echo, that was all; a little shadow that had forgotten that shadows weren't cast by nothingness.

Instead, she had a glass of water and decided to turn in for the night. Bobby had already taken a seat on the couch and looked sleepy enough to nod off any minute, so, with a nod his way, she told him briefly, "That's it for me, I'm off to bed," and left the room.

"Goodnight… to you t… too…"

He might have addressed her by name, but he didn't know it, and she didn't stop to give it. She made no answering reply. He was just a shadow; by morning, he'd be all gone. He wouldn't have anything to say to her, not a 'good morning', nothing at all. The sun would come up, and he would just cease to exist. Goodbye would have been more appropriate, but he wasn't a fast boy, he was rather slow, actually, and appropriateness, it seemed, had continued to elude him in death as it had in life.

She didn't feel sorry for him, she didn't even particularly feel sorry for herself; she wasn't in a state of shock, she wasn't on the verge of tears, she felt… like living. Her father's words came back to her then. He'd told her, 'Life goes on.' How fitting those words seemed, how almost clinical, almost cruel, but so very perfect, so very right.

The night was really starting to heap up on her, she thought, all of those hours she should have been sleeping, and closed the bedroom door, making sure that the lock snapped shut just so.

* * *

Her name, the alias they'd been given and had checked out, was Miriam James. They'd just found out she was pregnant, though she'd confessed to being a little unsure as to who the father might be; she was single, after all. Of course, wasn't that the point of it? She'd gone to one of those clinics. She didn't really care who the father was, it was just that people, as much as they proclaimed tolerance for the out-of-the-norm were actually quite normal at heart, and things like that, well, they were frowned on.

Though the timing was rather early into things, she'd gotten the impression that the child would be born a boy, and she'd quite liked the name Aaron Clive. It wasn't a particularly attractive name, but it had made her laugh when she'd first thought of it, and she'd decided to stick with it. These days, every who, which and why was naming their son Jacob or Michael or Joshua. She'd wanted something more… individual.

If he was actually a she, well, she'd be hard-pressed, but she was a fast thinker. It was why she'd decided to work for the Center in the first place; she'd enjoyed a challenge and she'd liked that she could get her work done in her own time, on her own terms, from wherever she so pleased.

She always went by Miriam, never by Miri or Mir or Mimi, and always Ms., never Miss. She was neat, particularly good at keeping to schedules, and didn't go for the whole One day you're walking along and Bam! along comes love and fixes all of your little problems up for you, fine and dandy. She believed that the only one who was going to sort her life out was herself and she was sticking to her guns on that one. She wouldn't be bent.

One day, Aaron and she were going to be quite happy, and very, very normal, living their painfully happy, disgustingly normal life together, and, in the meantime, she was having fun. But not too much fun, as that was the sort of thing the doctor had always warned her about. Too much fun would eventually make you start to think that that was all life was about, when life could actually be pretty shitty when it took the fancy to be so. And that was the thing she wasn't so crash hot over the idea of. Her life was going to be happy, but not too happy, and 100% perfect.

Her single rebellion to the normalcy of the world was her son, and she was going to love him a very, very big lot. With a mom like her, he wouldn't have to know the shitty-ness of life, and that was her big payback at the world. She might have had a crappy childhood, but she wasn't going to inflict the same thing on her child, so take that, yuppie boffins!

She was 33, a December birth, accustomed to the cold, but happier when the sun was shining and a warm breeze was making the rounds, and she didn't think her red hair led other people to prejudge her nature. It wasn't about hair colour, it was about all of it, the whole kit and caboodle; she wasn't all that tall, her eyes were green instead of Barbie doll blue, and she had somewhat more of a tan that Barbie or Skipper had ever had, no matter how many trips they took to the tanning saloon or how many hours they spent sunbaking on private beaches at some _muy exclusivo_ holiday resort.

* * *

The Peterson Turbine Hotel

Oregon

"This is nonsense!" Rooney's mother shouted. "Nothing but lies! Lies, lies, lies! The girl is no more Center property than I am!"

Rooney sighed, tuning out his mother's ranting for a moment, just a moment, to hold onto his sanity.

"I do not understand how they are claiming that we have this girl! We have not touched her! We have barely… barely _breathed_ on her! How do they know?"

"I suppose their-"

His mother shook her head. "Empaths! Bloody Empaths again! This is nonsense, son! We have our own Empaths! Empaths we have specifically tasked to work against people such as these – Empaths who _know_ how to do their jobs!"

Rooney blanched, then felt a hot blush creeping into his face. Was his mother implying that he was incompetent!

"We should have killed him! I _told_ you we should have killed him!" his mother shouted.

"But he is a Parker, mother," Rooney protested.

"To Hell with the Parkers!" his mother yelled, throwing up her hands and turning swiftly to fix him with a dark stare that sent shivers coursing through his blood even though he was only seeing it over a live video link. "I have met this Parker man! He is a fool!"

"Mother, that was years ago. That man is long dead. Even you are aware of how influential the family has become since then."

She shook her head. She didn't care what he said, the girl was _theirs_! "We had a bargain!" she shrieked.

"Yes, mother, we agreed on it, too. But for _the child_, not for the girl. We can come out on the winning end of this thing, mother; we still can; all we need do is have Blake have a look at the girl, accelerate the child's growth, and it is ours. They need never know we have it. So the child was just not meant to be; it spontaneously aborted. Sad, regrettable, but what could be done?"

His mother stopped pacing and narrowed her eyes. Clicking her fingers at the screen, she tossed her chin. "Get on it, my son. I want it seen to now!"

"At once, mother."


	8. Chapter 8

DAY FIVE

A Bus Stop Outside of Georgina

Oregon

When she woke, she felt sick and tired. And she didn't know where she was, or how she'd gotten there. Her head hurt, she noticed, as she struggled to open her eyes and acquaint to the brightness of the day. It seemed like it was going to be a good day. She had the urge to say something, but no one else was about; she'd have been talking to herself and that seemed, well, it seemed silly.

She'd been sitting at a bus stop, she realised; for how long, she didn't know. Somehow, she realised that this wasn't right. Why was she sitting here, at a bus stop along this abandoned stretch of road, instead of somewhere else; what had happened to the Contest? Shouldn't she have been there, instead, instead of out here.

Blinking a few times, she stood up and looked around her. It was all just... farmland, she supposed. She placed a hand on her belly and realised that that was another thing, she was hungry.

Just how had she got out here? she wondered furiously. What was going on?

The bus stop was no use, if it had ever held any sort of signage it was now long gone. Resigned, she began walking, wrapping her arms around her against the morning cold. She hoped it would start to warm up soon, she felt impossibly cold.

* * *

"Stop! Stop, stop, stop!" Miss Parker pointed through the windscreen to the woman walking along the road alone. "That's her! What is she doing out here, in the middle of nowhere? They couldn't drop her off someplace else, someplace where there might be a chance of bloody transport!" she fumed. They'd been looking for her long enough; it was about time they stumbled across her, too. Miss Parker couldn't wait to be home and away from this shambles! _Home_, she mused darkly, since when had she began to think of that rat hole Blue Cove as home!

Raines pulled over on the side of the road and nodded for her to go ahead and get out, already taking out his phone to contact their other teams and inform them that the woman had been located.

Rolling her eyes, Miss Parker pushed open her car door and held a hand up to shield her eyes momentarily before ducking back into the car to retrieve her sunglasses and slip them on. Much better.

She sighed and strolled up to the young woman who was pretending not to have noticed the suspicious-looking dark car. "You look like you could do with a ride someplace," she said, as she drew nearer to the younger woman.

At first, Emily didn't say anything. She merely continued walking.

"Whereabouts are you headed, anyhow?" Miss Parker pressed, and Emily finally turned and took notice of her.

"I don't need a ride," she said, "I'm just out for a walk. I live around here."

Miss Parker smiled to her let know they both knew that was a load of rubbish. "Enough of these games, Emily, I know who you are and I know, too, that you know who I am – very well. You're with us now. We'll sort all of this out, you'll see."

Emily began to shake her head, then, abruptly, she began running.

Miss Parker stood there and frowned. "Are you forgetting someone, darling?" she called out to Emily. "We're the ones with the car, you're not."

At that announcement, Emily headed for the side of the road as though to make over one of the fences and Miss Parker moaned. "Please, tell me this isn't happening!" She sprinted after the woman and managed to grab a hold of her before she'd had the chance to make it over the fence; Miss Parker was glad that she'd worn something other than high heels, but the look of pain on the other woman's face made her forget all about that.

"Look, come back with us; don't fight," she urged the other woman, holding her tightly around the middle from behind. "We can help you. We have people who can help."

"No!" Emily whined, still perhaps thinking she could make a break for it.

Casually, Raines stepped out of the car, finished with his phone call, and strolled on over. With a casual brush of his hand over Emily's forehead, Miss Parker suddenly found herself lumped with the entirety of the admittedly small woman's unconscious weight, but the problem was that she wasn't all that much bigger than her, herself. With death rays coming from her eyes, Miss Parker sent Raines a glare, and grouched, "Help me, would you, instead of standing around like it's some Goddamn party we've come for!"

He sighed, and stepped in to help her get the woman back to the car before any unfortunate company happened to roll by.

* * *

"And?" she urged, once they had Emily safely tucked away on the back seat of the car, looking like she'd just fallen asleep en route to their destination.

"What are you expecting me to say?" Raines asked, annoyed now.

"Is she...?"

"No, she isn't," he snapped.

"Goddamn lying son-of-a-bitch!" Miss Parker swore angrily.

"Hush, it's obvious that she was, at some point, pregnant. I can't say that it was very far along, but I have an idea of how events might have played out. You know how it's going to happen from now on in, don't you? They're going to say that the child spontaneously aborted and that, when she found out, she couldn't handle it and decided she'd rather... I don't know, get away from it all, I suppose."

"But she was pregnant?" Miss Parker demanded.

"I think so."

"You 'think' so?" Miss Parker all but shouted. This, coming from the man who'd proclaimed himself to be a Healer though he'd damn well failed to Heal her brother; this, coming from the man who'd shot her mother dead! "No! No! Not 'I think so'!" she spat. "I want to know for sure, and I want to know _now_!"

"Well, I'm sorry if that upsets your sensibilities, Miss Parker, but I can't tell you _for sure_," he replied, determined, it seemed, to keep a level tone of voice.

"Fuck you!" she muttered. "Useless piece of shit!"

"I'm pleased that you seem to entertain such an accepting view of your own father, Melody."

"Fuck you and drive!" she growled.

"Alright, that I can do."

* * *

The Centre

Blue Cove

Delaware

When Emily next woke, it was to find herself inside, in what she thought might be a hospital, though it mustn't have been such a big hospital for it was full of the hustle and bustle and noise of those hospitals. She wondered, briefly, if it was the hospital belonging to a small town by the bus stop she'd woken to found herself at, earlier.

She didn't have to wonder any longer, however, when a movement from ahead of her caught her eye and she looked up to see Miss Parker standing there, calmly as you please. "How are you feeling today, Emily?" the older woman asked, and just the sound of her voice made Emily's skin crawl, let alone the fact that her eyes shared a disgustingly frightening sililarity to her twin brother's.

Emily suddenly felt like vomiting. "Why are you doing this to me?" she asked, only, her voice came out rather weak and raspy.

Miss Parker strolled around to her bedside and picked up the glass of water there, holding it out for her to take, but Emily wasn't having any of it; she'd rather go without, thank you; she'd rather dry up and turn into a prune, or die of dehydration. Not that that was likely, she supposed, seeing as she seemed to be connected to a drip.

"There's nothing wrong with me!" she shouted suddenly. "What are you _giving_ me?" Before she could so much as reach for the tube, though, the other woman's hand had closed fast and unmoveable over her own, stopping her from ripping it out, and her blue eyes glinted like deadly sharp ice.

"I don't play these games, Emily," she hissed. "I'm not my brother, and I'm not my father, so you'd better just get that in your pretty little head! When I tell you you can trust me, you will pay fucking attention and take my word for it! I'm putting myself out on a limb here for you, _girl_, and I don't expect to be repaid by you stabbing me in the back at the first Goddamn opportunity you see!"

"get your hand off me!" Emily whispered fiercely, prompting a dangerous glint in the other woman's eyes and an all too sweet smile.

"Oh, I'm not into cute, little things the likes of you, I assure you," she simpered. "Now," she relaxed her grip on Emily's wrist and sat down on the side of the bed, "I want to know exactly what went down, and I don't want anything left out. Just remember, I'll know if you're lying, Emily, so don't even try it." She inclined her head nicely. "And, if you wouldn't mind at all, I'd like to know _now_!"

* * *

It had occurred to Miss Parker, of course, that Raines had used her, and, for that matter, all of them; he'd whipped up this rubbish about the contagion her brother had been exposed to being potentially transmittable between the general public, when that was nothing more than a lie, but a lie, nonetheless, that would allow him to cover up whatever it was he had felt needed covering up in relations to her brother. If he'd been some sort of alien clone, she'd have completely understood, but even she didn't believe that, not for a second, and so she was prompted to wonder what Raines had _really_ been covering up, what he'd really been afraid that they might find out if he hadn't taken quick, precise and immediate action.

After having listened to Emily's side of the story, she didn't feel the least bit sorry for the loss of her brother; the world would be a far better place without him, but her opinion of the girl, of Jarod's sister, had certainly come a great deal of distance from first impressions. The girl was a complete and utter fool, a dolt, incapable of even the most logical deductions but those that suited her and only her, she decided; she was most likely suffering some form of untreatable mental illness, or else she'd done such a splendid job of hiding it from, not only the rest of the world, but also from those closest to her that they had absolutely no idea and, in reality, didn't know her at all.

She hoped, for Jarod's sake, that he wouldn't be too hurt when he learned the truth, or that he hadn't been lying to himself purposely for exactly that reason; because to admit it had hurt too damn much, far too damn much.

Pressing the call button on the wall, she got in a nurse to sedate Emily and left her alone, pondering what they were going to do about the baby, and if, in fact, it had lived or not. In her opinion, it didn't seem likely that it can have, being, as it had been, only a few days into its gestation period. Still, it was too damn strange that T-Corp should want anything to do with a woman like Emily carrying a child that was no more than a handful of hours along. How they had even known about it, for that matter, was anyone's guess.

* * *

Waking a second time, Emily found herself alone and felt minimally glad for that fact, at least. At least, she wouldn't have to have Miss Parker staring down at her darkly with those eyes, she thought, and remembered what she'd told the woman earlier, whenever that had been, in fact.

Why she had been kidnapped, she couldn't put an answer to, only that she knew that it had been planned in advance by someone, and that Lyle must have been in on the plan, too.

She wondered where he was now. When she got out of this place, she swore, she would find him and wipe him off the face of the earth! It surprised her that no one had had the inkling to do so before, but, then again, perhaps they had and he'd merely taken care of them as he'd taken care of her brother, Kyle.

That would not happen to her, she decided, he wouldn't be the one coming out winner a second time, even if it killed her to see it to its final end, to see him to his final end, she'd do it anyway, and be proud of it.

Unconsciously, a hand strayed to her abdomen. Had it worked? she wondered. Had that been the purpose of this all along? Was she pregnant? Had that been Lyle's plan? And why? What was she that was so important?

* * *

DAY SIX

The nurse had just departed, after arriving with Emily's meal, when Raines stepped into the room. The woman reminded him a lot of her mother, he supposed; it was almost eerie. The resemblance, of course, was not what lent the girl her certain eeriness, but what he'd known about her mother, and what he could now she in her, in her eyes.

It would be wise, he decided, to maintain caution, very wise, indeed.

"You play your cards right, girlie, and you'll be out of here in no time and on your merry way," he told her casually, and watched her chin dart up and those eerie eyes fix on his. How Lyle had stood to be in such close proximity to her, he didn't know, she gave him the creeps with those eyes and that hair; her mother's hair more than her father's. But perhaps the boy hadn't cared all that great a deal for the past and its goings on; perhaps he'd not cared because it had had hardly anything to do with his own past, in his opinion. Yet, he knew, that had been untrue, how untrue it had been; this girl's past, a past she'd scarcely been a part of as so much of it had occurred before she'd even been born, and the boy's past had had everything to do with one another; their mothers had been best friends, and they'd plotted and planned together for a long, long time before Catherine had finally decided to rescue those kids; they'd had such wonderful dreams, and all of them had gone to rack and ruin, not a single of one them left untouched, unchanged.

He'd had plans, too, once upon a time, and look what had come of them, he thought silently. "We have no use of _you_, girl," he added. "The boy might have seen otherwise, but he never was very well to begin with; I guess that sort of thing has a bearing on things, on events. When the time comes, you will be free to leave as you please and I won't say a word; you'll just be recovering from a nasty, little ordeal with my unfortunately deceased lunatic son and your subsequent mental breakdown. Feel free to relax, make some plans; I hear the islands can be quite inviting, actually."

* * *

The Hive

Arizona

"We have no further use of the others," his mother told him dismissively. "We have the child now and should we continue to entertain those two, we risk losing the upper hand we now have over that child. See to it that they are taken care of in the proper manner, son. Good work."

Rooney nodded, and left his mother alone.

She wanted the older man and the clone killed, he knew, but perhaps he wouldn't do that, at all; perhaps he'd convince an Empath he knew to arrange a few things so that they would never remember what had happened here or that they'd even ever been taken.

It would be an unnecessary blow to Blake should the two meet their end by the hand of the corporation she'd had no choice but to call her own, but to call her family, her home, and if anything could be done to prevent that blow from coming to pass, he decided, he would see to it. His mother might have been the one in charge of the corporation, she might have run _that_, but she _didn't_ control his heart.

* * *

DAY EIGHT

The Centre

Blue Cove

Delaware

The nightmares had woken Emily in the night, and she now lay awake trying to think of anything but those same nightmares. She'd have much preferred sleep, but it didn't look like that was going to happen any time soon. She'd just have to wait it out, she supposed, until the exhaustion once more felled her ability to stay awake, and she fell back into sleep. Still, on the other hand, were she to find herself in the middle of those same nightmares, she felt a distinct unease forming inside her, an unease that was quickly beginning to feel much more like terror.

As she counted her breaths, her heartbeats, the shadows that didn't really exist, anything to relax, to find a moment's peace – he couldn't hurt her anymore, Raines had said so, he was dead; he'd never hurt her or her family again; never again – her mind settled on the topic of her baby, of the baby she wasn't sure she'd ever been carrying, and that was when she remembered.

"_Emily? Emily? Are you awake? You're not just pretending to still be asleep for my benefit, are you? Russell?"_

"_Why would I do that?" she hissed, between her teeth, but didn't turn over to look at him. She didn't want to look at him, she'd only want to hurt him. It wasn't as though she could have stayed asleep with him shaking on her arm like that, anyway. _Lunatic_, she thought maliciously. Maybe she would turn around and clobber him one, or at least try._

"_This is important, pay attention."_

"_Trust me, you lunatic, _sleep_ is important! If I don't-"_

"_Shut up and just listen, okay. Do you always have to have everything your own way? You're not a bloody princess, you know! Grow up and start acting your age, for once! Now, listen-"_

"_You asshole!" she spat, rolling over abruptly and raising her hands into fists which he unfortunately took a hold of before she could do much of anything._

"Don't_ start a fight. Your father and... brother need your help right now."_

"_What are you talking about?" she hissed, narrowing her eyes at him though it was far too dark for her to make out much. Apparently, his eyes were better than hers in the dark, she thought darkly. Or maybe it was just because he'd been awake longer._

"_They've been taken by the enemy-"_

_She laughed, not much of one, but enough of one to share her disbelief _very_ clearly. "The enemy!" she mocked._

"_Surely even _you_ have heard of T-Corp? Come on, tell me you're not _that_ thick? You're really disappointing me here, Russell."_

"_I don't know what you're talking about," she breathed, though she did, in truth. She'd heard of them, and none of what she'd heard had she liked. She didn't appreciate his saying that her father and younger brother had been captured by the likes of them, either!_

"_I'm only relaying what I know, if you're not willing to listen, I can hardly help you, then, can-"_

"_You filthy liar!" she spat._

"_It's not a lie," he told her, and to her increasing frustration, his patience seemed still intact. He probably thought it was a big joke._

"_If it was true, then Jarod would know about it, and he'd have-"_

"_Be quiet. He most certainly would not. The company has no desire to lead Jarod into the enemy's hands! They've asked me to see about the old man and the child, and that's what I'm going to do, and you're going to help me, if you care at all for your family members!"_

_She laughed bitterly. "And you're doing this out of the kindness of your heart, I suppose!" she spat._

_He smiled. "Of course not, girl, what do you take me for, an imbecile. I'm merely exploiting an avenue by which to lend myself an in with the company's good graces once more, and I intend for it to be successful. I couldn't care less about your _father_, or that _thing_! I do care, however, about my future."_

_She returned the smile with one of her own. "Aren't you the lovely type, now," she mocked._

"_What I am and am not is quite beside the point, Emily, I am asking you once and for all: Do you want to see your father and brother alive after today or do you not?"_

"_I don't believe you," she stated flatly._

"_What possible reason could I have to lie to you, Russell? You're no one; you're nothing. I don't care about you. You're hardly worth the breath that you draw to stay alive. You're not a Pretender, and, to top it off, you're a damn fool."_

"_Why, I appreciate the complement," she replied sweetly._

"_I'm sure you do, darling."_

_She didn't wipe the smile from her face, just to piss the stupid fuck off. If he thought she was going to rise to that, he was sorely mistaken. "Say that I am to be convinced by your winning charm and sincerity. What then? How do we ensure my father and brother's safety?"_

"_The people who have taken them have asked that we partake in an exchange."_

"_No way! What sort of a fucking exchange?" She wasn't smiling anymore._

"_Nothing major."_

"_I said 'what _sort_ of a fucking exchange,' you fucking lunatic?"_

"_So you believe me then?"_

"_I didn't say that?"_

"_Should I inform my contact that I will be needing further proof before I am to go any further? What sort of proof would it take to convince you, my dear? An eye perhaps? Something more?"_

"_Fuck you, you _bastard_!" She started to struggle, but it wasn't really going to do any good starting a fight with someone who could easily have disabled her hardly without trying at all._

"_Now, now, what will our neighbours think if they chance to hear all of this racket? Nothing good, I imagine. They're not going to think you're such a sweet, little innocent thing after that, let me tell you."_

_Seething, she fell still, her breathing uneven and angered. "What do they want?" she growled._

"_Your child," he replied easily._

_She was silent for a long moment, Finally, she said, "I don't _have_ a child!"_

"_We can easily fix that, now, can't we," he answered. She imagined, then, that he might let go of her hands and reach out to touch her face, but he did no such thing. Apparently, she just wasn't his type, either._

"_I would never, _ever_ give my child up to the likes of _them_!" she spat furiously, hating him all the more for the fact that he seemed not to care a single iota that it might also be his child that he would be giving up. "Do you hear me!"_

"_Well, I really hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but it's either the child or your father and your darling little brother. It's entirely up to you, of course, what you decide, in the end."_

_She'd started to shake now, out of anger and outrage, but also out of disgust and a sudden sweeping sense of fear and hopelessness. She didn't think that he was lying anymore, he was enjoying it far too much to be acting. She wanted to _kill_ him, but she didn't want to see her father or brother killed, either. The thought of him so much as touching her made her want to throw up. She shuddered, then, to think of what she feel like were she to have no choice but to be forced into conceiving a child with him. And then to give that child away..._

_She felt like maybe she was dying, or falling slowly into a black hole, in oblivion, and she wasn't even sure she believed in black holes. Her throat was suddenly clogged up, which she thought was probably just the aftermath of her heart being ripped apart, and, as calmly as she could, she quietly said, "If I agree to this, I don't want to remember. Do you understand? Can you do that, at least?"_

"_Do you know, I think I can, my dear. Does this mean that you agree?"_

_She closed her eyes, hating every single thing about herself, right at that moment, and whispered, "Yes."_

"_Very well. Well," he released her hands, "I think that's about it. Off you go back to sleep; I'll wake you again when it's the right time. Pleasant dreams, my dear."_

Except the company hadn't known, she thought now. He had known, and he'd devised a plan to use it all to his advantage, but to what end, she could have no way of knowing. It hadn't worked; she'd never been pregnant, and now he was dead. It had all been for nothing.

She could have kicked herself for falling so blindly into the trap he'd so carefully laid for her.

But why? Her restless, sleep-deprived mind kept coming back to that same question. Why! And who had those people been who had kidnapped her, and why was he now dead, if they'd been people he had first hired?

She didn't want to think about the alternative. She didn't want to think that she had somehow, someway, really, truly given her child up to those people who were no better than the Centre!

In any case, he'd said she wouldn't remember.

* * *

DAY TWENTY-THREE

New York

New York

When she finally got out, when she was finally allowed free, it was to find her father and younger brother in fine health. They'd met up with her in New York; Jarod had been worried sick about her, but she only brushed him off with a story of a lead she'd been following. She knew that Lyle hadn't been lying – that she'd given up her child, her own fucking _child_, to those fucking _monsters_, just allowed them to walk away with her _baby_ – she knew because she knew, too, that they dealt in Healers, and she'd never seen her dad looking so well.

_Oh, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry_, she thought, between her silent tears on those nights when she couldn't sleep because of what she'd had a hand in, because of the child she would never know. _I'm so Goddamn sorry!_

But it never was enough. She knew, then, that she'd never be free, not ever. Not even if the Centre was gone tomorrow, she'd still be in Hell.


End file.
